quote:

Now that it appears we are going to get one

Counting ... chickens ... hatched ....

Lieberman sticks to his principles: http://politicalticker.blogs.c...han-a-public-option/

Lieberman: No health care bill better than a public option
Posted: November 1st, 2009 11:11 AM ET
Washington (CNN) - Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday that America would be better off with no health care bill instead of one that includes a government-run public health insurance option.

Speaking on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Lieberman said he would use whatever power he has to prevent passage of a health care bill with a public option.

However, the independent from Connecticut who sits with the Democratic caucus reaffirmed he will support starting Senate debate on a bill that includes a public option. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, says he will bring such a measure to the floor coming weeks.

Lieberman said that, if the bill still contains a public option when it comes time to close the debate, he would filibuster to prevent a final vote.

The Senate's Republican minority has promised a filibuster, and Lieberman would give the GOP enough votes to succeed in blocking the bill.



FWIW, during the campaign Obama attacked Hillary from the right, saying he would focus on lowering cost to broaden coverage. The current bill does almost nothing to do that - not tort reform, tax on employer plans (all of it, from dollar zero), hospital price transparency, catastrophe plans, HSAs.

Lieberman apparently promised, when he joined the Democratic caucus, that he would not vote against them on procedural votes unless he received the whip's approval, although he'd retain the freedom to vote as he wished on substantive issues.

A filibuster vote is a procedural issue. If he can't honor his word, take his chairmanship away, and kick him out of the caucus.

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Now that it appears we are going to get one

Counting ... chickens ... hatched ....

C'mon, quirt. Use my entire quote -- which covers your counting chickens.

quote:

Now that it appears we are going to get one (we need to wait and see -- still much debate to come)

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Zimmer:

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Now that it appears we are going to get one

Counting ... chickens ... hatched ....

C'mon, quirt. Use my entire quote -- which covers your counting chickens.

quote:

Now that it appears we are going to get one (we need to wait and see -- still much debate to come)

Rick,

How does it appear to you that a public option will prevail? Is it that it is now watered down enough to get the 4 moderates and Leiberman or is it that some pork will be thrown in the legislation to get their vote or will they do it by reconciliation? What is the path-- not your hope but your educated guess?

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:

quote:

Originally posted by OperaTenor:
The current "reform" amounts to nothing more than corporate welfare for the health care industry.

Yup, and they'll take their welfare money and invest it on Wall Street where it will then be skimmed and summarily vaporized.

Are you starting to see a trend here?

Dude, that's why we live in the Corporate States of America.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Zimmer:
Interesting to me that a couple of months ago, everyone was bemoaning the loss of the public option. Now that it appears we are going to get one (we need to wait and see -- still much debate to come), people are bemoaning that it is not the right public option.

We need to get this thing passed -- see how it works -- and then go about fixing what is wrong with it.

I recall Mr. Obama saying in the campaign that he would try a lot of stuff; some would work and some would not. If it didn't work, he'd change it. This is my view of the public option; indeed of many of the aspects of the whole health reform effort.

I also think it is interesting that moderates with a more conservative view of the size of government are forcing us into a plan which will require the creation of a helluva a lot of bureaucratic jobs to negotiate prices rather than taking the most efficient way of setting rates -- using medicare rates and adding a factor to it, which I'll bet is how it plays out in practice any way.

Not me. I've consistently bemoaned it from the outset. If it walks like corporate welfare and it quacks like corporate welfare, it's corporate welfare.

[bong mode] You heard it here first. [/bong mode]

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
Lieberman apparently promised, when he joined the Democratic caucus, that he would not vote against them on procedural votes unless he received the whip's approval, although he'd retain the freedom to vote as he wished on substantive issues.

A filibuster vote is a procedural issue. If he can't honor his word, take his chairmanship away, and kick him out of the caucus.

+1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...better_n_341456.html

"He pointed the finger at Democrats for making the public option part of their bill when there was "broad bipartisan support" for a bill without one."

Liar.

CBS Lets Lieberman Lie About the CBO Analysis of Public Option Premiums
By: Scarecrow Sunday November 1, 2009 11:04 am, FDL


There appears to be no limit to the number of lies and misrepresentations the unprincipled opportunist Joe Lieberman will embrace so the media will think Joe is "relevant."

CBS enabled Lieberman’s relevance by allowing him to lie repeatedly on Face the Nation; the inept Bob Schieffer never bothered to challenge any of Joe’s blatant falsehoods.

Lieberman’s most egregious falseholds involved his claims about the public option and his misrepresentation of the CBO analysis of how the public option would affect health insurance premiums.

Lieberman: I think that a public option will actually hurt the economic recovery, and our long-term fiscal situation, because it will end up causing the government to raise taxes, will probably raise premiums, or it will put us further into debt.

. . .

I want to be able to say yes . . . but I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement, the government going into the health insurance business, I think it’s such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote.

. . .

Schieffer: But is what you’re also saying, nothing is better than a government health insurance, a health insurance reform that includes a public option? Nothing is better than that?

Lieberman: Well, the truth is nothing is better than that, we ought to follow, if I may, the doctors’ oath in Congress as we deal with health reform.

I’m afraid, . . .

Amazingly, no one is talking about it. The Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday, when the House Democrats put out their health care reform plan with a public option, that the public plan would end up charging higher premiums than the average premiums charged by the commercial health insurance companies. Now why would we want to do that?

Why would we . . . the Congressional Budget Office has also said, if the government creates a public plan, the public is going to be on the line, when it runs a deficit, as it surely will, the public, the taxpayer is going to have to pay for it.

Despite several efforts to explain the CBO’s analysis of the effect of the public option on premiums, it is still being misunderstood by the media and misrepresented by scoundrels like Lieberman. The CBO said (h/t Jon Walker)

That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO’s assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges. The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers participating in the exchanges. The public plan would have lower administrative costs than those private plans but would probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees. (The effects of that “adverse selection” on the public plan’s premiums would be only partially offset by the “risk adjustment” procedures that would apply to all plans operating in the exchanges.) emphasis added)

Pay attention, Media: The reason CBO claims the Public Option could have "premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges" is because the CBO believes the PO would be covering sicker people with higher costs than those covered by private plans.

It’s an apple and oranges comparison. In other words, private insurers would select and cover healthier people, and thus have lower premiums; the PO would accept and cover all comers, including sicker people, and thus have higher costs and higher premiums.

That is not a criticism of the public option; covering people who are being screwed by the private system is a powerful reason to have the PO. But why does it occur?

The CBO analysis explains (or rather obscures with technical terms) that the private insurers will discriminate against sicker people, even though the new regulations prohibit such discrimination. The embolded sentence means the PO will not attempt "management of utilitzation," which is a euphymism for saying the public option will not behave like the private insurers who will discourage sicker people simply by providing them less responsive coverage.

The private insurers will do everything they can to discourage older, sicker people from choosing them, thus nudging these more costly patients towards the PO. As a result, the PO will tend to have older, sicker patients, with higher health care costs, and so the POs premiums will, on average be higher than the premiums private insurers charge for caring for healthier patients.

In addition, the CBO is conceding that the reform mechanism for discouraging the private insurers from such cherry picking and discrimination in violation of the regulations will not work as effectively as it should. The private insurers will cheat on the exchange rules and undermine the cost-sharing mechanism that would otherwise require private insurers to reimburse the public option for covering higher-cost patients.

Lieberman turns the CBO analysis up-side-down. He claims the PO would cost more and cause government to bail it out. But the opposite is true; what the CBO is telling us is that the PO is actually more efficient than the private insurers. While it’s premiums could be higher if it has to cover higher-cost patients, it would cover those patients with premiums less than the private insurers would charge if they were forced to cover the same patients.

Moreover, CBO is explaining that the PO’s faithful coverage of the higher-cost patients would allow the private insurers to have lower premiums for the lower-cost patients they cover. In other words, even if the PO’s premiums were higher (given the sicker patients it covers), its mere presence allows private insurers’ premiums to be lower, while providing lower cost coverage for the PO’s patients.

In sum:
1. The PO’s presence would provide lower-cost coverage for sicker Americans.
2. The PO would allow private insurers to charge lower premiums to their healthier enrollees, because higher-cost enrolless were covered by the PO.
3. The total cost of coverage for all enrollees in the exchange would be lower because of the PO’s lower costs for faithfully covering the patients with the highest costs.
4. The CBO provides powerful arguments for why a strong Public Option is vital not only to lowering premiums for everyone in the exchange but also for ensuring there is viable coverage for those Americans the private insurers will do everything they can not to cover.
5. If there is no viable PO, and the government were not able to enforce the prohibitions on discrimination that private insurers will seek to evade, then millions more people will be pushed out of the system and/or badly mistreated by the private insurers.
6. If there is no viable PO, and the government succeeded in enforcing the prohibitions on discrimination, then total private premiums would rise (to cover the sicker payments), and so would the need for government subsidies, thus adversely impacting the federal deficits.
7. If Congress wants to lower total premiums and reduce the federal budget for subsidies, while ensuring more of the uninsured are covered, then it should include a strong PO and give more people access to it. A weak PO and limited access makes everything worse.

And Joe Lieberman is an unprincipled, lying scoundrel.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/12295

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...better_n_341456.html

"He pointed the finger at Democrats for making the public option part of their bill when there was "broad bipartisan support" for a bill without one."

Liar.

Daniel

Here is what Lieberman said. How did Huffpo get their translation?

SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN: --Washington today, Bob. There is broad bipartisan support for health care
delivery reforms, for pushing the insurance companies. For instance, to-- to give insurance to people
who've preexisting illness, no cap on lifetime benefits. We're extending health insurance to people who
don't have it. All of a sudden, if you're not for this government health insurance company, you're-- you're--
you're against health care reform, I'd say to them, don't stop us from getting something important and
good done for the Americans

quote:

Originally posted by fathertopianist:

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...better_n_341456.html

"He pointed the finger at Democrats for making the public option part of their bill when there was "broad bipartisan support" for a bill without one."

Liar.

Daniel

Here is what Lieberman said. How did Huffpo get their translation?

SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN: --Washington today, Bob. There is broad bipartisan support for health care
delivery reforms, for pushing the insurance companies. For instance, to-- to give insurance to people
who've preexisting illness, no cap on lifetime benefits. We're extending health insurance to people who
don't have it. All of a sudden, if you're not for this government health insurance company, you're-- you're--
you're against health care reform, I'd say to them, don't stop us from getting something important and
good done for the Americans

But ... but ... but ... Lieberman is the one threatening to stop the Senate from getting something good done for the Americans.

Ax beat me to it. Thanks, Ax.

For Joe Lieberman and those who share his twisted view of his self-importance, what he says makes sense.

For the rest of us, not so much.

What he is saying is that Republicans support these health care reform bills. This is a lie. Republicans are voting "No."

In fact, he is saying that but for the public option, Republicans would support these bills. This is a lie.

He's a liar, period.

quote:

Originally posted by fathertopianist:

Rick,

How does it appear to you that a public option will prevail? Is it that it is now watered down enough to get the 4 moderates and Leiberman or is it that some pork will be thrown in the legislation to get their vote or will they do it by reconciliation? What is the path-- not your hope but your educated guess?

There is still much time to go in this discussion and much can still happen. However, whenever I see politicians near the end of a major debate staking out positions in opposition to those who will win when their vote is needed for that win, I assume that is all they are doing -- staking out positions. Their reason? They want something.

I am not so sure it is even the public option that is the problem for any of these guys. Or if they even have a problem with the bills, per se, as they are coming out.

What I assume is they want something -- and I expect it will be given to them. Yes, I believe they want to be paid off and will be. Maybe with a position. Maybe with a program for their state. Maybe with political support. And there is a good chance, I think, it will have little to do with the health reform legislation.

I also think that the pressure on these guys when this comes up for a vote is going to be so intense, I am not sure they will be able to withstand it.

As I have been saying all along -- don't write the obituary on the public option quite yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Zimmer:
Interesting to me that a couple of months ago, everyone was bemoaning the loss of the public option. Now that it appears we are going to get one (we need to wait and see -- still much debate to come), people are bemoaning that it is not the right public option.

There are big differences between some of them.

The one Reid chose isn't the worst one but if the rates were tied to Medicare it would save more money according to the CBO.

I'm not bemoaning his choice.

But there is a big difference between a public option with an opt out and a public option with a trigger.

A trigger is a way to to kill the public option outright. The trigger will never be triggered, just like with Medicare Part D, which also has a trigger. I've read a lot about this and "trigger" seems to be a tired and true Washington-speak way of saying "never".

So if people don't accept a triggered public option, they have good reason to, imho.

As far as the public option covering 2%, well, that's 2% of the American people who need health insurance and would have it.

I think Joe "I don't want the government to spend 1 cent on health insurance but I don't mind voting for trillions of dollars for defense and the finance industry" has his priorities skewed.

I think it's profoundly regrettable that what the government is going to do is something they know will leave a certain percentage of the population without health care.

That's astounding. It doesn't happen in a single other industrialized democracy.

I'm not particularly proud of this country for failing in this way.

I think it's unfortunate that this country has been put through six months of hell. I blame this on weak leadership by Democrats. The Republicans would have done whatever they were going to do and been done with it in a few weeks. And they sure never would have agonized about doing something with 51 votes. Not on your life. And they wouldn't put up with this clown Lieberman. He would have been stripped of his chairmanship a long time ago.

Wait, did I say I wasn't going to bemoan the possiblilty of having a public option covering 2% of the population?

My bad.

I guess I'm ambivalent. The way to have universal health care is to, um, cover everyone. It's not rocket science.

What I've seen is the Democrats (and needless to say the Republicans) doing everything they can do to accomplish as little as possible, everything they can do to ignore the wishes of the majority of the people in this country.

Hopefully, the law will be changed in the future. It's going to have to be because people will demand it. People are not going to be happy with mandates when almost nobody has the choice of a public option. And people aren't going to be happy if and when they find that health care is not affordable.

So I don't think people are being petulant about the form the public option takes. Public option proponents are settling for a public option which covers 2% of the population. I mean people who want a public option and want it to be available to everyone would be getting almost nothing.