What Determined How Democrats Voted?
Nate Silver does an excellent breakdown of the statistics behind how each House Democrat voted on health care reform. The basic conclusion is that conservative Democrats from districts that had <40% of the vote go to Obama were the no votes. The amount of insurance company money a member received or the number of % of uninsured in their districts mattered very little.
Crooks and Liars tells us the immediate benefits of the bill. Some of the provisions don’t start until 2014, but all these changes start immediately:
Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President’s signature on the health care bill:
1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.
Tags: Health Care Reform
Thank you, UI, for posting that second part — I think much of this tends to get lost in the broader discussion. Yes, much of the bill (ind. mandate, exchanges, subsidies, etc..) won’t come online for several years, but there ARE aspects that take effect immediately. These are things that every Democratic candidate should have committed to memory for the fall, and throw in the face of any Republican who even mentions the idea of repealing the bill. Dems now will have something substantative to run on, not just ideas.
Yes, some very popular provisions will take place immediately – an end to recission and closing the Medicare donut hole. This is why I don’t think Republicans will gain that much from seniors, an immediate decrease in their drug costs will be very popular.
I’m curious as to how the free preventive care works now? Does this apply to the unisured as well?
I see that our boy Mike voted against the bill what a lemming he is. Also I see that he also voted against removing those backroom deals that are in the Senate Bill so that makes him for Corn huskers and Gator Aid good old mike you can count on him not to look out for our interest. Two Votes first to defend the Insurance Companies and the Second to defend Backroom dealings is this the guy we want in the SENATE
From the AAFP website:
Will this apply to the catastrophic plans as well? I’m just thinking about the currently uninsured. Can they buy a catasrophic plan and get free preventive care at least?
Quick answer seems to be, “Some”. (From what I can tell) The catastrophic plan will be, A)not up and running until the exchanges are in 2014, B)limited to those under 30 and others exempted for financial hardship, and C)set up with a $5950 deductible. As Kaiser Health News
notes, “The Senate bill requires the catastrophic plans to cover certain screening tests and immunizations even if the deductible hasn’t been met. It’s ambiguous on coverage for primary-care visits before the deductible is paid.” I have not been able to find yet what the exact wording is in the final bill. The linked article is all about the cat. plan and the “Young Invincibles”.
Here is a list of the 34 DEMORATS who didnt vote for it:
Harry Teague, NM
Jim Marshall, GA
Jim Matteson, UT
Mike McMahon, NY
Charlie Melacon, LA
Walt Minnick, ID
Glenn Nye, VA
Mike Ross, Ark
Heath Schuler, NC
Stephanie Sandlin (Chair of Bluedogs)
Rich Boucher, VA
Arthur Davis, Al
Charles Melcron, LA
Ike Shelton, MO
Colin Peterson, MN
Michael Arcuri, NY
Stephen Lynch, Mass
John Tanner, TN
Brian Baird, Wa
Bart Gordon, TN
Dan Lipinski, IL
Zack Spence, OH
Gene Taylor, MS
John Adler, NJ
Jason Altmire, PA
John Barrow, GA
Marion Barry, ARk
Bobby Bright, AL
Ben Chandler, KY
Travis Childers, MS
Lincoln Davis, Tn
Chet Edwards, TN
Herseth Sandlin, SD
Tim Holden, PA
Larry Kissel, NC
SO HOW DID THESE DEMS ESCAPE PELOSI, REID AND OBAMA?
Who won? Check Wall Streets stocks today. Big Pharma, For Profit Insurance companies and Medical supplies companies….stocks soaring. They won, the people lost. PNHP (Physicans for National Health Care) and real progressive groups are not giving up the fight. We are waiting for an opinion as to whether or not the final bill will give states the rights to enact their own health care systems. Once that has been determined, expect lawsuits.
Robert Reich today. Medicare built on FDR’s New Deal notion of government as the insurer, making payments to the government, and government paying out benefits. That was a central theme of Social Security and Medicare which piggeybacked on Social Security.
Obama’s legislation comes from an alternative idea, begun under Eisenhower and developed under Nixon. A market for health care based on private insurers and employers. Eisenhouer locked in a tax break for employer health benefits. Nixon pushed prepaid, health care plans (HMO’s) and encouraged a request that employers cover employees.
Obama applies Nixons plans and takes it a step further by requiring all americans buy health insurance and provide subsides to those who need it.
So don’t believe anyone who says Obama’s Health Care plan makes a swing of the pendulum towards the Great Society. Obama’s plan is a VERY conservative piece of legislation, building on republican rather than new deal strengths. Obama’s health care is more political than substantive.
This is not over folks, you just wait and see.
HI Ui–just wanted to check in w/ you. “Hope springs eternal”–and UI, kept the faith and saw this thing pass. Much as I disagree w/ the comprehensive scope of this bill’s implications, and would have preferred problem designated legislation, I will certainly abide by what was decided and make plans accordingly. I am particularly troubled by Kaiser provisions, and now await the day for our entire health model turned into a federal HMO. I didn’t like a private HMO of 20 years ago, so can’t imagine much of a variance from that. But it is what it is–and certainly your spirit, drive, and altruistic intent is commendable. I know you wanted this from a “good” place. What a shame the shake-out won’t deliver the expectation; and then we will really be scrambling–for another 100 years. Hope not–truly.
it is worth noting that “NO” was the bipartisan vote, and “YES” was the partisan position with only Democrats voting yes.
And P. Schwartz delivers a succint observation, that all of America should be noting, but is lost in the oversaturation of commentary and pundit ramblings.
RICO’s observation only comments on the partisan divide here — the majority of the NOs were from districts where McCain won, which UI already pointed out. That observation also takes into account the scorched earth policy that the GOP has had towards this thing. You can tell from the polling out there the success of that scorched earth policy — people are divided on support of the bill, but clearly supportive of the elements of the bill. The GOP long faces today are about their scorched earth policy not working more than anything else.
Excuse me, but weren’t there approx. 200 Republican amendments (accepted by Democrats) in this bill?
Leaked GOP Strategy Memo:
1) Scorched earth policy not working.
3) Need more scorched earth,
4) ?????
5) Success!!
Pandora’s right here — there was alot of bipartisanship built into this bill. The President worked hard at getting support and this entire effort was on the brink of failure more than once because of that effort. And in the end — lots of R ideas got included to this thing that watered down what lots wanted and still Rs pursued their policy of obstruction.
Bipartisanship is not a one way street. By definition.
Yup. And to pointedly include Kaiser Health Care (and yes a couple of others, but my axe is on Kaiser), w/ their faux non-profit, protected status leaves me cold. I can agree w/ 60-70% of intent of this bill, but those devil in the details of huge issues has my back up. Can married adult child remain on parents’ benefits, who may be in school, and under age 27? And what if a child is born to that 26 yo? Or is this “tax defined” dependent?
And those community health centers? Mid-level providers going to the gogo…..Access to care isn’t just about places, it’s providers too. Anyone care to pickup the tab for a medical/dental school education? I think it only fair if the reality becomes an economic downturn for a tremendously long, intensive, rigorous, course of study –chronically delaying gratification–to dovetail career choices, satisfaction w/ economic sustainability. Those loans don’t float away.
Here is a list of the 34 DEMORATS who didnt vote for it:…
SO HOW DID THESE DEMS ESCAPE PELOSI, REID AND OBAMA?
Two answers. First of all, the Democratic Party (unlike the current GOP) is comprised of thinking adults who are free to make up their own mind, not bureaucrats forced to obey their politburo.
Second, it’s quite possible that many of those voted “No” with the permission of the House leadership. You only need 216 to pass. There’s no extra credit for getting more. Some Dems from red districts would best be served by the bill passing without their votes. A good, strong Speaker would make sure there were sufficient “Yes” votes, and then allow some to vote otherwise.
I’m not sure what “pointedly including Kaiser Health Care” means, but as far as information about what is in the bill here are places out there who are vested in good analysis of medical law policy and Kaiser Health News is one. Another good place to get decent data is the bill itself. The government always posts up the latest versions in circulation and there are other places doing the same thing. You just need the bill number and an Acrobat Reader that has a search function. So the adult child provision in HR 3590 says this:
Which seems pretty clear. And there are some provisions for programs for staff training and facility expansion especially for underserved communities.
There is no way that this bill is perfect and it never will be. But I have argued before that Republicans could have dealt with the pending train wreck that is our health care system and decided to really deal with the cost control issues here. But they pretty much left the field in order to take their star turns on Fox news….
Ezra Klein points us to the Speaker of the House’s page on the bill, which has a lot of documents and summaries of the details of the bill.
“Anyone care to pickup the tab for a medical/dental school education?”
Funny you should mention that. It’s in there.
“They won, the people lost.”
It’s not a zero-sum game.
“it is worth noting that “NO” was the bipartisan vote, and “YES” was the partisan position with only Democrats voting yes.”
This might be the stupidest comment on the whole affair yet. Joanne Christian, you went down two pegs on the intelligence scale for maintaining that nobody is talking about this. All the asshat radio Republicans are talking about it. What you mean is that nobody who knows jack squat about politics is talking about it, and that’s because it’s a point both immaterial and juvenile that isn’t worth the electrons it took to type it.