Tom Carper Never Lets Go the Rightwing Talking Points
Call this post reason #578,091 why Senator Tom Carper is not a progressive. As if a proud member of the DLC could be. Senator Carper tells WHYY:
Delaware’s senior Senator Tom Carper (D) says Lieberman’s main concern making sure “we don’t balloon or swell the deficit, the nation’s debt further by what we do with respect to a public option.” Carper calls that a reasonable concern.
How is this a reasonable concern in light of the fact that this bill is completely paid for? And both Houses worked pretty hard to make sure it is paid for? And I’ll point out that neither Carper or Lieberman objected to the costs of the BushCo tax cuts, the costs of the Afghanistan or Iraq Wars or even the “War on Terror”, or Medicare Part D — NOT ONE OF THEM WAS PAID FOR. And the combination of these make up the biggest portion of the structural deficit.
Carper is no dummy here and it suits him to feed to untrue wingnut talking point that there is something here that increases the deficit. Because he too is hellbent on eliminating the Public Option and if that takes embracing the lies, apparently this works for him.
I have a dream: Get rid of Carper & Castle. Crazy? No, at some point time will do it for us. In the mean time I find them both equally useless. As for Joe Lieberfool it’s ample evidence things could be worse.
Ugh. Why don’t Democrats try to sell their own ideas instead of running away from them?
I think that insurance companies bought the right to have Carper sell their ideas.
Because he too is hellbent on eliminating the Public Option
Not so. Public option appears highly unlikely to get 60 votes, even though Carper is among the 56 committed to it. Carper’s mission is to round up 60 votes to get something passed.
Diplomacy in public life makes people say strange things. Sen. Kennedy referred to James Eastland as “my friend from Mississippi.” President Obama speaks of Iran’s “legitimate aspirations” for nuclear power. Carper keeps the line connected to Lieberman, whose vote the Democratic caucus continues to need fairly frequently.
I agree that Carper is not the one responsible for killing the public option. The Senate a&$hole Caucus of Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln and Lieberman + all Republicans will be the responsible ones.
Obama’s Top Aides Met Often With Health Care Lobbyists
APReport ^ | November 25th 2009
AP President Obama’s top aides met frequently with lobbyists and health care industry heavyweights as his administration pieced together a national health care overhaul, according to White House visitor records obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The records disclose visits by a broad cross-section of the people most involved in the health care debate, weighted heavily toward those who want to overhaul the system. The list includes George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield…
Silver lining?
To think that just 22 years ago, 17 Republicans [of 46] voted down Bork.
I agree that Carper is not the one responsible for killing the public option.
He may not be solely responsible, but he has been key to the long process in the Senate of helping to figure out ways to weaken it. This trigger BS has been at the top of his talking points since August AND you could not get him to unequivocally support the Public Option in any of the Q&As I saw or participated in. Unlike Schumer who is pushing hard for the Public Option, Carper’s first choices have always been for something else — something else that gives the appearance of concern re: competition but pretty much kills that possibility. Like his Medicare Part D trigger. No doubt he is looking for compromise — but the compromise that he is looking for is going to be incredibly good for the people who write him checks and not so good for the rest of us.
And I’d like to ask John Manifold to please get in touch with his buddy Carper to ask him to stop legitimizing clearly wrong wingnut talking points. If we are clear that this BS from the mouths of repubs is wrong, it is doubly wrong from Carper.
I look for results, votes. Imprecise new-age accusations like “legitimizing” make for little more than cul-de-sac bar talk.
It’s true that Carper views the public option less sympathetically than you or I, but his efforts to get it enacted – the opt-out is a brilliant idea – have been yeoman.
I certainly care about results but how you explain it is also very important. We want people to understand and start changing their thinking from 30 years of Republican indoctrination. We’ve seen polling that shows Democratic ideas are more popular than Republican ones but people still call themselves “conservatives” and talk about how government sucks. We need to talk to persuade. We need to sell our ideas.
The opt-out is a brilliant idea which is apparently no longer operative.
And I fail to see how it is especially “new-agey” to expect that someone who is supposed to have been at the table for these negotiations will stand up for the facts of what is currently at the table. There are no results to be had, no votes to be had,and certainly no demonstrable leadership in repeating a wingnut lie. Especially when alot of Democrats did yeoman work to make sure all of this business gets paid for. I don’t see why it is unreasonable to respect that effort (and its success) and you seem to want everyone to do for the opt-out provision.
UI and Cassandra have made very fine points in well-expressed posts.
So much bullshit here, so little time.
1) “Call this post reason #578,091 why Senator Tom Carper is not a progressive. As if a proud member of the DLC could be.”
You know, Jack Markell is a much bigger player in the DLC than Carper ever has been, but no one on this blog ever has a problem calling Jack a progressive. [Source: http://blog.markell.org/?p=37%5D
2) Carper says it is a reasonable concern, and frankly, it is a reasonable concern. He’s one of the few people who actually could convince Lieberman to go along with healthcare reform. I know you guys think anything less than Medicare for everyone is wing-nut bullshit, but I’m sorry, it’s not going to happen like that right now. It has nothing to do with Tom Carper – it has much more to do with Nelson, Lieberman, Lincoln, and Landrieu. JUST BECAUSE Carper is trying to find a middle ground, doesn’t mean he’s trying to kill healthcare reform, in fact I’d argue he’s doing more than anyone else to try and get SOMETHING out of the Senate. Unless you do reconciliation (which would be an awful, awful, awful idea for too many reasons), then you’re not getting anything out of there without 60 votes. You can bitch and whine and scream, but the Senate is a consensus body and that’s how it works. It’s numb nuts like Bernie Sanders and others who will scream public option, with no semblance of an idea of what that means, how it will work, or how it will be paid for. And yes, it actually does matter how we pay for stuff, that’s not (or at least it shouldn’t be) conservative mumbo-jumbo.
3) At some point, liberals, progressives, and democrats in general are going to have to take some responsibility for the way healthcare reform comes out. People sat on their asses while morons played tea party all summer and scared people. You thought Obama was going to carry the water, and he really didn’t. He did a poor job of laying out specifics and lost control. Progressives did a famously bad job of articulating what the fuck a public option is, and why it wouldn’t destroy America, as it’s foes said it would. It was a buzz word that meant a lot to people who read HuffPo and FDL, but nothing to the average, middle of the road person who you actually have to convince.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for what we’re dealing with now, and although Tom Carper is an easy scapegoat, take some fucking responsibility for what has been wrought.
Cassandra you got it right when you say :
No doubt he is looking for compromise — but the compromise that he is looking for is going to be incredibly good for the people who write him checks and not so good for the rest of us.
Wake up !!!
Compromise my foot !
Sen. Carper……. Fundraising, 2005 – 2010, Campaign Cmte
Raised: $3,936,039
Spent: $3,904,940
Cash on Hand: $781,327
Debts: $0
Last Report: Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Top 5 Contributors, 2005-2010, Campaign Cmte
Contributor Total Indivs PACs
Citigroup Inc $55,300 $48,300 $7,000
Norfolk Southern $42,260 $34,000 $8,260
JPMorgan Chase & Co $38,668 $36,168 $2,500
Bank of America $29,330 $20,750 $8,580
DuPont Co $26,850 $10,250 $16,600
Top 5 Industries, 2005-2010, Campaign Cmte
Industry Total Indivs PACs
Lawyers/Law Firms $301,332 $219,600 $81,732
Insurance $225,460 $42,820 $182,640
Commercial Banks $205,079 $125,269 $79,810
Securities & Investment $199,392 $101,614 $97,778
Real Estate $156,780 $91,350 $65,430
Frieda – what exactly is this supposed to prove?
Commitment my ass. Carper is #56 on that list – and he’s committed to undermining it from within.
60 votes is the whole fucking problem. RECONCILIATION – if we only had to use this tactic once in fifty years, this would be the time and the place to do it. Cut all the assholes like Carper loose and pass a better bill with 52-54 votes.
Carper’s mission is pre-emptive compromise – try to give everything away for no concessions before the fight even starts. He is bought and paid for by the scam insurance companies and is only trying to protect their interests.
Xstryker – Reconciliation is not a “tactic”, and thus exposes your total lack of understanding about how it should (and should not) be utilized.
I don’t know what Carper has done to garner such ire on this issue. He’s on the Finance Committee, and voted for the Schumer public option. Find one amendment he offered in Finance that weakened the bill or otherwise “gave everything away”. You may disagree with the PHRMA agreement, but that was a White House brokered arrangement, so take it up with Obama.
Also, the “fight” started a long time ago.
Tom Carper is not your enemy here, my friend. You and others have formulated a mental narrative and you’re going to do everything you can to fit every story into that narrative, let the facts be damned.
Carper has supported every single initiative that did or would weaken the bill. We was initially against the public option. He supported the trigger option (“give insurance companies as much time as possible to change the law – er, I mean, their ways”). He opposes a “ready-on-day-one” public option. He voted against Medicare-plus-five pricing, which would have erased budget concerns. He crafted the opt-out plan (ie, allow the states that need public option health care the most – Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, etc – to deny it to their citizens).
I don’t know what Carper has done to garner such ire on this issue.
Then perhaps you should get your google going and see what we’ve had to say on the subject. We’ve been following this quite closely since summer. You are the one fact-challenged here well behind the curve too. And as long as Carper is delighted to misrepresent this bill in public he is definitely not part of the solution.
Isn’t Gov. Markell also a member of the DLC? I know he used to be.
Markell & DLC: http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=3165&kaid=104&subid=116
Markell is a member of the DLC — but I wonder who thinks that Carper and Markell are working for the same constituencies.
My reaction to Markell and the DLC is meh. All Democratic politicians were affiliated in some way with the DLC when it was a powerful organization. It’s how politicians speak about issues that identify them as DLC acolytes or not.
“Then perhaps you should get your google going and see what we’ve had to say on the subject.”
JTF is right. Carper-haters tend to be long on ventilation, short on focus, particularly when challenged. Their odes to Lieber-Dem Markell could be published in Tiger Beat.
Nice to see all the Carper lovers getting together to demostrate their fealty here.
Since you don’t understand the lack of love for your boy, do us a favor — find the speech by Carper in which he talks with genuine emotion about the problems faced by people struggling with health care problems. Can’t find one, can you?
Sure, it would be empty talk. But let’s not pretend that pretty talk isn’t one of the job requirements. The fact is that Carper has expressed more emotion about the backroom deal with PHRMA and how wrong it would be to go back on Obama’s word than he ever has for real people and their problems.
Acting the centrist diplomat does not preclude talking like a liberal. If he doesn’t want to mouth a few liberal pieties once in a while, he — and his acolytes — will have to learn to live with liberal criticism.
And the three of you should stop playing dumb. I’m pretty sure you understand all this already.
As noted earlier, some focus on speeches, others on results. Barking from the left can do good, but these posts are circular. Received wisdom. “See what we’ve written before. Give me three reasons. Go find a speech.” It’s like encountering a right-wing site, with nouns changed. “How can you not know about Clinton’s many scandals?”
It’s funny how the Carper critic critics are not bringing any facts to the debate. This post says right in the beginning what Carper said and what we objected to. Our criticism is based on Carper’s actions. Every time we hear about a weakening of the public option in the Senate, Carper’s behind it. Carper has no love of the public option and some of my objections to Carper in the health care debate are the following: 1) he pushed co-ops, even after CBO analysis showed that they are worthless, 2) he voted against an amendment to let Medicare negotiate drug prices, 3) he voted against the strong public option in the SFC, 4) now he’s talking about even shittier triggered co-ops and 5) he uses right wing talking points when talking about health care reform.
If the Carper lovers want to defend those things, go ahead. I believe I have the right to be disappointed in that and hope that we could get a better senator.
“Carper critic critics are not bringing any facts to the debate.”
Reread JTF’s post.
Stryker “He is bought and paid for by the scam insurance companies and is only trying to protect their interests.”
You got it !
Sen. Carper……. Fundraising, 2005 – 2010, Campaign Cmte
Raised: $3,936,039 details above.
and JTF asked
Frieda – what exactly is this supposed to prove?
How dense can you get.
You could copy comparable statistics for every Senator who’s been in DC more than two years – Harkin, Murray, Bingaman, Rockefeller, Schumer, Durbin, Leahy … Everyone gets hundreds of thousands, with little effort, from big industries.
JTF is wallowing in so much BS that is all he sees.
And the statistics we are talking about here are for the health insurance and related lobbies — not for “big industries”. So if you got additional stats for that, then let’s see them.
Don’t move the goalposts. The point is that you can accuse any Senator of selling out.
If you want to focus on insurance, be advised that Schumer, Dodd, Lincoln, Reid, Bayh, Gillibrand, Murray, Ben Nelson, Wyden, Dorgan, Baucus get more insurance industry contributions than Carper. In the 2008 election cycle, Carper was 64th among Senators in insurance industry contributions.
“In the 2008 election cycle, Carper was 64th among Senators in insurance industry contributions.”
The question is why he needs even that much in such a small state.
As for what I wrote, why don’t you just answer the question instead of trying to shit on everyone who disagrees with you?
You keep talking about speechifying as if it’s a zero-sum game — you can’t talk like a liberal if you’re trying to persuade a conservative. What bunk. Nobody is saying Carper should talk like Bernie Saunders. I’m suggesting he try talking like a human being instead of a talking-point-emitting machine. It’s not that hard, yet he won’t do it. And as long as he has assholes like Belinsky to cover for him, I guess he never will.
And you don’t get to change the subject. Insurance counts for the 2nd highest industry donor for Carper.
And it would be useful to see the data you are citing here.
Carper’s sole support of the public option came with voting for Schumer’s amendment. Prior to that and after that his name has been attached to every single so-called “alternative” to the public option — triggers, opt-ins, opt-outs — with no demonstrable leadership on getting a public option done. Throughout the Summer of Spittle, Carper talked about everything but support for the Public Option.
why don’t you just answer the question instead of trying to shit on everyone who disagrees with you? … And as long as he has assholes like Belinsky
Or semi-literates with anger management problems.
I’m neither angry nor wrong. How much does Carper pay you to monitor this blog? We never see your name unless you’re coming here to “defend” him.
Silly boy doesn’t remember the times he’s thrown ashtrays in fury on other topics where I and others have strayed from his orthodoxy.
Cassandra and others have legitimate points but terminal naïvete. Last week they were bursting gaskets because a guy joined a DC lobbying firm, three years after leaving Carper’s office.
Belinsky : “Don’t move the goalposts. The point is that you can accuse any Senator of selling out.”
ANY SENATOR is not MY Senator, let his constituents deal with him
Lets get real here.
No Belinsky,
Caper’s lackey got named PARTNER three years after joining the firm. When he quit as Carper’s COS he was immediately hired on.
And, as the firm’s own news pages expressed, the guy was working with the firm for years prior to leaving Carper. As Carper’s Senate staffer, he started the Monday meeting. That’s the lobby-meet-pol critical access grouping that the Third Way people were desparate to maintain in the Delay era. So jealous.
Throughout the Summer of Spittle, Carper talked about everything but support for the Public Option.
*
and, in fact, was widely reported saying that he had no intention of reading the hcr bill his committee was formulating.
(note to DL – tags are useful)
Nancy – Thank you for the correction on Jones.
“Silly boy doesn’t remember the times he’s thrown ashtrays in fury on other topics where I and others have strayed from his orthodoxy.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t use ashtrays.
What I know is you’ve never failed to apologize for him, and have chosen to ignore the points I’ve raised (which have nothing to do with orthodoxy), leading to the conclusion that you’ve got nothing but an attitude, and that attitude is one of uncritical admiration for Tom Carper.
What I don’t know but suspect is that he’s paying you to do it, because I don’t think anyone would troll Delaware blogs to defend Tom Carper merely for the fun of it. He’s not the sort who inspires such devotion.
“Thank you for the correction on Jones.”
He means, “Thank you for demolishing my stab at a fact-based debate point.”
Goodness graceless. One accepts a correction and Geezer still has to be restrained by the bouncers.
My prior points remain in play. I understand that Cassandra, Isotope and Frieda view them differently. The basic points in JTF’s lengthy post yesterday remain pertinent.
A correction? Be serious. It demolished your point, and you still refuse to concede that anyone else has made a valid one. And if the internet is too boisterous a place for you, nobody will be sorry to see you go. You’re a whore.
As Nancy pointed out, your boy has made his true feelings about this debate crystal clear. And, despite your contention, there’s no evidence that the bill that emerges for a vote will be a victory of any sort except political. It will cover more people in the most complicated and expensive possible way, and will not contain any provision for reining in costs. The only winners will be the insurance companies that Carper has done so much to serve.
Do you favor a public option? If so, why so happy with Carper? Your motives are what’s at issue at this point. I think they’re impure, and you are doing nothing to dissuade that notion.
I’m not “defending” Tom Carper, and I don’t think Belinksy is either, I’m just saying you can’t go around saying Tom Carper is killing the public option – because he isn’t. He’s trying to offer viable alternatives to get a FUCKING BILL passed. I don’t think you people understand that right now, things aren’t looking too hot for healthcare reform.
And this argument IF ONLY WE HAD THE SINGLE-PAYER-UNIVERSAL-SUPER-DUPER-PUBLIC OPTION (or whatever stupid moniker has been assigned to this mystical public policy arrangement) THEN WE’D PASS IT BY, LIKE, 85 VOTES….. is delusional. It reminds me of conservatives saying they lose elections because they aren’t FAR ENOUGH TO THE RIGHT. That’s horse shit, and it may get some panties wet over here but that’s not what lawmaking it about and it isn’t what elections are about. I know most of you don’t concern yourself with this, because it’s not your job, but it is Tom Carper’s job, and it should be the job of every Democrat in this country to get something out of Congress before January 1. It’s not going to be close to perfect, but it will be a step in the right direction, and you aren’t going to go backwards. That’s why the conservatives are about to start mixing the cyanide kool-aid.
I made a lot of other pretty fact-based, common-sense points about the process and what has led us to this point, in my earlier post. Of course, because it didn’t say that Tom Carper was a member of the John Birch society, they were ignored. So be it. Healthcare reform, in the end, won’t be passed because of anything progressives have done, but in spite of them.
Frieda – You want to have a conversation about public-financing of campaigns, not the health insurance’s grasp on Tom Carper. If your point is, “OH LOOK, COMPANIEZ BE GIVINS CASH MONEY TO SENATUR CARPUR”, I got that. I got that a long time ago, and welcome to fucking American politics. This isn’t Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and if you want to have a debate about campaign finance, I’m with you that it’s shit but save your breath right now.
Geezer – Apparently your point is that Tom Carper hasn’t cried enough or something? I mean, I guess I see your point, which I believe amounts to “At least pretend like you care, because that’s all liberals care about.” Well, maybe, if we did a little less boo-hooing and a little more, you know, thinking and policy-making – WE WOULDN’T KEEP GETTING OUR ASSES HANDED TO US EVERY TIME WE TRY TO PASS SOME FUCKING MAJOR REFORMS. I know only grandstanding and YELLING REALLY LOUD is what get’s accolades around here, and anyone who actually tries to do some real legislating is JUST AN INSIDER-BOUGHT-AND-SOLD-MEMBER-OF-THE-DELAWARE-WAY, but seriously folks. This is serious business and sometimes you’ve got to actually get some shit done. Most of the time, your little heroes’ suits are about as empty as their rhetoric. “Liberal pieties”, I didn’t think we were that stupid but you must have a very low opinion of your fellow progressives.
Nancy – Sorry, but I don’t think Tom Carper (or any politician for that matter) has anything to do with what their staff chooses to do after they leave his office. That’s just a silly argument. That says something about Jones, not about Carper.
Also, yeah, have you ever actually read a piece of real federal legislation? It’s gobbledy-gook, especially this bill, full of mostly references to other public laws. I think it’s silly to think of any of the Senators will, or should, read the actual bill. There are literal-language versions they’ll read.
Cassandra – “Carper’s sole support of the public option came with voting for Schumer’s amendment.”
Uhm, so he supported the PUBLIC OPTION? If he had voted against it, then you’d be bitching about that too. He’s worked and touted alternatives because he knew a PUBLIC OPTION would never get 60 votes.
Lo and behold, looks like he was fucking right.
Maybe if you clap your hands really fast, and really loud, the public option will appear.
Wow…the Tom Carper flaks are particularly fierce and feisty tonight! Looks like the tryptophan had the reverse-effect on JTF.
I see Carper being more of a wet rag on health care than anything else.
No matter what happens, TC will ride this issue out. He played it well, hate to say.
“Healthcare reform, in the end, won’t be passed because of anything progressives have done, but in spite of them.”
And, as a consequence, the resulting health care “reform” will be a horrible, expensive botch. Better no bill, frankly, than a 2,000-page gift to the insurance industry.
I don’t really care about whether Democrats get elected or not, particularly if they’re the sort of Democrats who, in the pinch, tend to vote like Republicans. You seem to have bought into the inside-the-beltway mentality that it’s more important to pass something than to pass something that will work.
The reason Democrats get their asses handed to them routinely is their quivering fear of getting their asses handed to them. They try to protect themselves by caving in routinely, and the result is that nobody respects them — even those of us who routinely vote for them.
Carper: a wind up Ken doll…..just need to know who holds the
key(s).
JTF just does not get it
“Frieda – You want to have a conversation about public-financing of campaigns,……
No I understand the system, but when fast talking Tom has to get together with a republican to put more $Billions in subsidies
into the energy budget for the nuclear energy guys I smell a big rat. Only massive public objection foiled his plan. I happen to know a little bit about that. AND you can goggle it. You see unlike you I am nmot afraif\d to use MY NAME,
Geezer, I used to feel more like you do, and now I feel more like JTF does, and who knows, next week.
I work in the smallest level of government, in an environment where “R” and “D” doesn’t come into it. And we do something difficult. And just to get ONE difficult thing done… not done perfectly, or with full consensus, but completed on schedule, requires months of listening and trying to respect each other, and understanding where people are coming from. There are people I LOATHE that I wind up agreeing with, and people I adore who make NO sense at all in these contexts. There’s the ideal, which no one holds more dearly than I do, and there’s what will get enough votes AND create no uproar among the electorate. And it matters what the electorate thinks, because they elected all of us, and they deserve to be represented. Even by idiots. Even by idiots like ME. I have a responsibility to our governing documents, I have a responsibility to the folks who elect us, and I have a responsibility to my own conscience. What I don’t have is a magic wand.
I worry that what we pass in #hcr will be worse than what we have, hard as that is for me to imagine. I worry that we don’t pass anything, and incumbents of both parties will be tossed out for the hard right AND left, and things get even nastier and more blocked up. But I don’t envy anyone in Congress right now. Darn few of them have magic wands either, and I’ll bet I’m not the only one losing sleep about this.
Geezer’s guy mulling another run for the roses.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/11/27/195937/93#commenttop
Brooke: I hear you, and I sympathize. My fear is that health care has long since ceased to be about fixing what’s wrong with our jury-rigged system, and has become a contest of strength and will. JTF is asking us to back whatever comes out of negotiations, but why? Just to prove we can do it?
If this bill were the result of true compromise, I’d be all for it. But it’s not. The opponents aren’t trying to create a better bill — they’re fighting to make us accept a fatally flawed bill. When it fails to better the situation, those same opponents will claim government can’t do anything right.
Can I even BELIEVE any 21st century person voted for the Stupak amendment? I cannot. Or that there’s any reason, strategic or otherwise, why Joe Lieberman hasn’t been invited to caucus with a jar of hand cream, much less keep his committee chairmanship? I don’t get that, either.
But the thing is, I know that people who were not in the meetings *I* was in might see some of my work’s outcome as equally bizarre. I was a gay rights activist when Clinton decided to “pay back gay support” by starting that DADT business. I was totally WTF????????? Could you THINK of an initiative more likely to derail your presidency, sir? Suddenly we’re in the “buggery in uniform fest.” I’d have gone for more money for public health, and the Shepard act, myself, sir.
But I wasn’t there. I used to argue with WIC about the cereals covered by their program. I was right about those, too. But they’re handing out SOME cereal, which is better than nothing. I don’t know that what we’ll wind up with is better than nothing and the pissing contest aspect just makes me want to snatch away their lollipops, but I’m trying to see what comes of it.
The biggest problem with what JTF is promoting is that the public option ‘piece’ as opt-in, opt-out, trigger or co-op leaves it too weak to effect the population that needs it. We don’t need no stinkin’ 60 votes if the compromise punishes the citizens and compensates the special interests.
On balance, the bills ‘strengths?’:
-mandated (and therefore millions of new private insurance customers)buy-ins;
-no anti-trust buster amendment to combat standing monopolies;
-backdoor WH- (that Senator Carper was smack in the middle of) deals to prevent any price negotiation with big pharma
and (throw a few in for the GOP)
-no tort caps or
-purchase across state lines provisions.
The Senate’s progressives will try to reinvent the Senate Finance bill to create something worth voting for or they will withhold their vote.
Winning these day is having resources for negative advertising.
EXPLOITATION and threats…there is a big money war where the special interests tell Rahm Emanuel that they’ll spend 100 million in advertisement unless they get their way.
In the end they’ll do that anyway.
Even though the CBO had graded the Senate bill as fair, it cautions that no one can predict costs containment and that they do expect that costs will rise.
The best bet against costs is the public option where there is no fat profits going to stockholders or executive bonuses and no money for political lobbyists or for combative advertisement.
Carper sits squarely on the wrong side of this mess. His game is the game of lobby and influence. How does a man with kids in Ivy League schools and a career public pay check sock away three million in personal wealth? Just wondering.
Here are “13 very specific proven solutions” to improve the DEMs HCR bills:
A minimum medical loss ratio for insurance companies mandating that they spend at least 90 cents of every dollar they take in as premiums on health care. This is based on the crazy idea that health insurance should insure people’s health instead of corporate profits.
Turn all health insurances companies into non-profits. Most countries that are not single payer (Switzerland, Germany, Belgium) require all basic health insurance plans to be non-profits.
On the new exchanges, create a much stronger risk adjustment mechanism, like in the Netherlands, to encourage competition on quality and cost effectiveness, instead of the cherry picking of healthy customers.
Allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance on the new exchange with their own money. It will increase the size of the risk pool and reduce the cost of uncompensated care in this country.
On the new exchanges, use more tightly defined benefit packages, and define plan levels based on deductible and copay size, instead of actuarial value. This will simplify comparison shopping and encourage the selection of more cost-effective HMO’s, instead of PPO’s
Allow for drug re-importation. People in every other first world country pay much less for the same prescription drugs. Let Americans buy these cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe.
Allow Medicare to directly negotiate lower drug prices. Medicare Part D was one of the biggest corporate giveaways in American history. Allow Medicare to use its size (as the VA system does) to directly negotiate for lower drug prices for seniors.
Eliminate direct-to-consumer drug advertising. It only increases the unnecessary use of medicine.
Follow the FTC recommendation by providing shorter exclusivity periods for biosimilars. The current bills create an extremely long 12-year exclusivity period. Going with the FTC recommendations will increase the availability of much cheaper generic versions of life saving biologics.
Create a robust public option that can use Medicare rates and Medicare’s provider network.
Create a single provider reimbursement negotiator like basically every other industrialized nation. The lack of this is the single biggest reason why, as a nation, we pay several times what other countries do for the same procedure.
Create a fully integrated, government-run health care HMO, based on the VA health care system, which would be an insurance option for all Americans.
Finally, adopt a Medicare-for-all single-payer system for everyone in the country.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/11/27/really-peter-orszag-your-critics-have-no-ideas-for-controlling-cost/
How does a man with kids in Ivy League schools and a career public pay check sock away three million in personal wealth? Just wondering.
Sent his kids to public school; has lived in same house for 20 years; saved $$ with modest lifestyle; one of the kids goes to a fine state college; spouse who worked for DuPont. The Thomas Stanley recipe, http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html and a talented wife.
Carper makes no secret of who he really works for. That’s the frustrating part. Bloggers: “Tom you are bought and paid for.” Tom” “I know. So what?”
But the thing is, I know that people who were not in the meetings *I* was in might see some of my work’s outcome as equally bizarre.
This is true for lots of projects from the outside looking in. I know that some of the more systemic issues in my own business come from making accommodations to the compromises made by those who set policy.
And Carper is among those making policy. VC probably has it right that he is likely more of wet rag than anything, but I think that giving someone the privilege of representing me in Congress comes with it some obligation to leadership.
I’m very much aware of the need for 60 votes. But I’m also aware that this is 60 votes for a very compromised already bit of business that has some good stuff in it, but its long term impacts are the ones that get traded away for short-term interests that have not one darned thing to do with getting this reform — as policy — in place. Everyone says that you do not really want to see laws being made and this process is likely Exhibit A. But that doesn’t mean that it is any easier to watch as the groups with money to burn are enabled by the people whose campaigns they finance.
LOL Jason
“Tom you are bought and paid for.” Tom” “I know. So what?”
And so we lump it