Death Vouchers

“Do you realize that your leadership is asking you to cast a vote today to abolish Medicare as we know it?”
– Nancy Pelosi, April 15, 2011

The convoluted logic went like this. We were going to take something away in our existing health care system, we were going to have to reduce what was covered, some procedure choices would be pushed out of reach, some spending on inefficient older bodies and minds would need to be trimmed, some people would need to be judged in a faceless bureaucratic court of cost, and health care rationing would be introduced. The empanelled bureaucrats charged with weighing your life’s worthiness of repair would make up a cold hearted “death panel.”

The kind and loving face of the right had once again worked overtime injecting fear into the debate of President Obama’s health care reform. Yet whether one agrees with the result or not, there were not, are not, and will not be death panels in the loosest sense. The aim was to cover more people with insurance. Death panels were a leap of hyperbole about rationing.

An interesting component of rationing is the use of coupons or vouchers to give everyone the same slice of little. Vouchers are a device that invokes getting a tangible just due reward that one can spend as one sees fit. Misunderstood is that vouchers are also the device to get government money into private business hands with the least amount of government and voter controls. And like a coupon, vouchers are not necessarily intended to cover all costs, just the basics in part with you throwing in the difference. Now if coming up with the difference is a problem, and it will be, for many elderly Americans then the result is…surprise…rationing health care.

Senior fixed budgets will be subjected ever greater pressures to choose among the necessities of food, shelter, and health care in a process that is simultaneously going to be inadequate, confusing, and subject to market whims. On the political front it will be easier to reign in spending by trimming coupons a bit here and there depending on who is in power. The ability to indirectly cut Medicare as we knew it by hacking at it one remove away at the voucher level brings to mind reducing what will be covered, pushing some procedure choices out of reach, forcing decisions on spending on inefficient older bodies and minds onto the voucher recipients, leaving some people to be judged in a faceless bureaucratic market of cost, and thus introducing full blown health care rationing for older citizens. One might even call this weighing your life’s worthiness of repair the determinate factor in how one might elect to spend their inadequate cold hearted “death voucher.”

Medicare as we know it may face spending structural issues but the essential factor in the midst of all the economic debt fear of the future being spread by the right who want their profits now is ultimately about choice. We need only climb onto a tank and waive a corporate tax file to present our petition.

Reform Rx - Snowe & Collins Redux

The United States Senate last night (2/2/10) voted on an amendment to the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act for the stated purpose of: To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

It failed completely along party lines (51-47) with our Senators Snowe and Collins joining the GOP minority to take away health care reforms for Maine people. We continue to be ill represented by both of our Senators. First each of them played drawn out games to weaken the original legislation substantively and now they continue to attack health care for all us by engaging in this showboat, kneel-to-the-tea-party vote to completely reverse and trash the entire effort.

You'll hear from them that their goal is to replace it with a better plan. The better plan time has past, they know it, and this is just one more attempt to reverse health care progress and set our gains back to zero. And despite constitutional bluster about mandates by Republicans, absolutely many essential reforms like covering pre-existing conditions will not work without a larger insurance pool and our Senators are ignoring such facts.

We must remember this in 2012 when Senator Snowe, endorsed by Governor LePage (who is himself moving us into an unwanted lawsuit to overturn health care reform) runs for re-election. Yes, this is the same Senator Snowe who voted in the Senate Finance Committee (her pre-existing position) to support a similar bill in 2009. Ever since then her commitment to reform has headed downhill to today voting to overturn the vital minimal reforms we desperately needed. We need to also remember Senator Collins continual gamesmanship on health care in 2014.

For more about the price Maine citizens will have to pay by any repeal of the Affordable Care Act for Maine citizens, follow this healthcare.gov link.

Snowe Sues to Overturn Rights for Maine Citizens

Senator Olympia Snowe now begins her journey from the hard right wing of the GOP to the ultra new and improved hard right wing of the tea party GOP alliance. Yesterday our US Senator from Maine signed onto an amicus brief in support of a Florida lawsuit's plaintiffs that challenges the Constitutionality of health care reform.

This is a dual announcement made in Florida to be heeded here in Maine. The first announcement is that Senator Snowe will run for re-election in 2010 and is beginning to position herself to blunt any primary challenge from the right. The second announcement by Senator Snowe is that she has abandoned any concern about poor and middle class Maine citizens and their need for a sane approach to health care rights which they need and support.

In post titled Lessons from the 2010 Maine elections, I submitted the following for consideration.

Snowe is safe.
With the tea party on the move nationwide, this may seem counterintuitive. However in Maine if you are a diligent incumbent Congressperson or Senator you get returned with a comfortable margin. That is our history and true to our nature we bucked a significant national trend that flipped the house and swept away two Democratic seats next door in NH. Snowe may draw a tea party primary challenger to crush in her primary but look to the GOP establishment and Governor LePage to assist her. The Democratic challenge to her needs to focus on her abandonment of moderation now and which is certain as the tea party pushes her further right which may be where safety meets reality.

Snowe is now abandoning the diligence and moderation noted above by playing into national out-of-state political gamesmanship to secure herself within the GOP. Snowe will be safe...within the GOP. However, over 60% of voters in the recent Governor's race rejected the tea party GOTP candidate who will slip into the back door of the Blaine House with a 38% plurality. Both Representatives Pingree and Michaud were returned to Congress by solid majority margins in a bad year for Democratic incumbents who voted for health care reform. Democrats need to focus on Senator Snowe now; she can be defeated by us if we forcefully and continually expose her abandonment of poor and middle class Maine citizens as so obviously apparent in her latest political maneuver.

Reform Rx – Moral Clarity

The New York Times tells the story of President Obama’s visit through a different lens:

On one side of the street, Obama aides scurried, the police blocked off traffic, and people waited in the sun, holding signs that said “Thank You” — though by lunchtime, hundreds were chanting the opposite. And on the other side, uninsured and underinsured people sought care, beginning with a man who saw little reason to eat.

Often lost in the battle of costs, the continuance of private insurance, and the sheer obstructionism of the right are also the individuals that need the Portland Community Health Center. For at the core of this issue is the moral essence of doing what is caring and just for every single person in this country regardless of means and circumstances.

President Obama signaled his readiness to engage in the moral debate:

"And now that it's passed, they're already promising to repeal it. They're actually going to run on a platform of repeal in November.

Well I say go for it. If these Congressmen in Washington want to come here to Maine and tell small business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest. If they want to look Lauren Gallagher in the eye and tell her they plan to take away her father's ability to get health insurance, that's their right. If they want to tell people like Theresa D'Andrea that they could once again face a lifetime of debt if they lose a family member, they can run on that platform. If they want to have that fight, I welcome that fight. Because I don't believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat. We've been there already and we're not going back. This country is ready to move forward.".

This state will be moving forward too. Appeal for repeal will rear up in the Congressional and Gubernatorial race from the right. In Maine we will have the opportunity to defeat these initial repeal challengers to show support for President Obama. And, Senators Snowe and Collins, despite their present political protestations, will dare not run their eventual re-election bids in 2012 and 2014 on repeal. Moral force and the practical positive results of the new law will be far too apparent. They will need to be challenged on their obstruction activities during passage and their forthcoming records regarding if they are supporting and enhancing the law.

We, the supporters of Barack Obama, may not all agree on the final outcome of this legislation but we must see it as a vital positive step in the right direction. We may bemoan that we would have had single payer or a better bill with less compromise if we had made a more forceful moral argument. But this is a young presidency. This is a massive accomplishment within a single year. And the moral flame has not flickered out; we need only to feed it.

Health care is now a right. We Americans expand rights

Reform Rx - Real Life Benefits

If you have coverage, insurance that was in effect before the bill becomes law is grandfathered in. Still, some provisions in the sidecar bill, like bans on lifetime benefit caps, would apply even to those plans.
That would solve a big problem for people such as Amy Wilhite of Marblehead, Ohio. Her family is insured through her husband's employer, but her 12-year-old daughter, Taylor, a leukemia survivor, has already gone through more than $1 million of medical care in her life and is approaching a $1.5 million cap. Taylor has been delaying or forgoing some care to stretch out coverage as long as possible.

and

This change, as well as rules against insurers' yanking policies if you get sick, and forcing family policies to generally include kids up to age 26, takes effect six months after the bill becomes law.

and

Retiree Daniel O'Connell of Greenville, S.C., said closing the doughnut hole was "very beneficial to me." Mr. O'Connell—who lives on a fixed income of about $40,000 a year—hit the coverage gap in August last year, and said he incurred about $1,500 in out-of-pocket costs.
"At a certain point you're not covered, even though you're paying the premium," he said.

All the above were found in an article in the March 22 Wall Street Journal online titled Steps You Can Take Ahead of Changes in Coverage, Taxes. It was not in the Monday printed edition I received. The Journal editorialized heavily against the legislation and will continue to do so. However it is apparent that once the law is in force that there is a pragmatic real life financial set of benefits that even the Wall Street Journal cannot ignore in their reporting.

Reform Rx - A moment of silence please.

Reform Rx - Bye Bipartisan – Be Partisan

Health Care Reform Has Passed!

This final bill was not my health care reform preference. It is a result of good intentions being diluted by industry lobbying and money. It suffered a thousand little cuts by Republicans seeking to defeat it. A final effort to tear it completely down with teabagger threats and hate was undertaken.

But it has passed. It will be the law of the land. It will be a measure that we can alter, improve, correct, refine, expand, and build upon. In seven more years of an Obama Presidency we can surely accomplish much more reform of health care.

The process was endlessly dragged on through last summer’s futile search for bi-partisanship in which our own Maine Senators Snowe and Collins dumped their moderate posturing to aid right wing and corporate interests by creating more space for time killing delays.

The confrontation should have come last spring. The vote would have perhaps been exactly the same but it would have been on a far stronger and less diluted measure.

We must learn from this. We do not have a single honest bipartisan partner in the Republican Party. The leadership from President Obama to finalize passage of this measure indicates he understands this reality. The evidence now tells us that leading toward what is morally right henceforth requires us to unabashedly be partisan on the side of this county’s people.

Reform Rx - CBO: HCR cuts deficit; GOP: NO

According to the New York Times:

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had determined that the package of legislation would produce "the largest deficit reduction of any bill we have adopted in Congress since 1993," when it passed President Clinton's budget proposal including substantial tax increases.

In the first ten years, the legislation would reduce deficits by $130 billion, Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the House majority whip, said after a meeting of the party's caucus. The effect on deficits over the following decade would be much greater, a total of $1.2 trillion, he said.

Of course Republicans, who take the high road in public and low road in private on deficits, once again respond with a NO according to the Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

"The American people know we're broke," Boehner told reporters at the Capitol. The last thing we need to do is add debt to our kids and grandkids."

To imediately state that a bill "adds debt to our kids and grandkids" in the face of a CBO report that actually says the direct opposite demonstrates how disingenuous the right is willing to be in their effort to willfully mislead.

Reform Rx - Reform the Reform

I am not a fan of the current health care reform package because I tend to favor the sweeping change over incremental steps. However I do want this package to go through because it establishes health care to a greater degree as a right and will be a baseline that we can build upon once in place. I'll be looking to individuals like Dennis Kucinich to reform the reform.

Reform Rx - Conservative Faction Fractions

Paul Krugman's NYT column took on three myths about health care reform today including the right wing panic attack concerning government takeover of "one-sixth" of our economy:

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a "takeover," that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

That's how the conservative faction does fractions in seeking their lowest common denominator of sound bite attack.

Reform RIP

Reform Rx: Health Care Summit Observations

President Obama uses food safety comparison

President Obama's response to Eric "Can't" Canter that used food and drug regulation costs resulting in safer food and drugs versus being able to get real cheap food and low cost drugs in the great wise efficient marketplace that would of course include dangers to the public. Money spent reforming and regulating health care is not money wasted that drives up taxes but rather an investment in health safety that saves lives.

Tom Harkin speaks to segregation

Senator Harkin made the very astute point that insurance risk pools are segregation based on peoples' health. He's right and that is why a robust public option or better yet single payer is the remedy to eliminate this form of segregation. Even if a majority have health insurance and are happy with their health plans, keeping a system that puts a minority at the "back of the bus" or not even allows them to "sit at the lunch counter" forms a moral impetus to reform health care. Furthermore, the legal establishment of subsidized high risk pools are wrong and would essentially be a "Jim Crow" law keeping the segregated "in their place".

President teaches ECON 101

In President Obama's closing remarks he made two economic points that market-worshiping Republicans need to take to heart.

First he likened buying power of a large group of that gives lower prices Americans to Wal-Mart and the opposite of that power being Mom and Pop stores with higher prices and lower selection. This represents the very same "markets can deliver" talk that conservatives always use. Yet they appear to reject this market mechanism. Will Republicans continue their doublespeak about markets?

Second the President directly challenged the myth of interstate insurance purchasing being an automatic "markets will deliver" solution. He aptly described how, based on credit card company practices of yore, how insurance companies would abandon states with fair regulations to set up shops in weak regulating, anything goes states in order to sell high deductibility, low benefit plans across state lines. This is the unregulated wild-west marketplace approach that conservatives doggedly contend efficiently delivers the best possible results. And it does: for stockholders but certainly not for consumers. Will Republicans continue to embrace even bad markets interests?

And for Maine: All rain, no Snowe

Our own Senator Snowe, who masquerades as putting constituents above party, was invited by the President of the United States to attend today’s to participate in today’s extraordinary public health bi-partisan effort. She refused. According to Fox:

But one of those Republicans who was involved in compromise talks will not be attending the summit. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, was invited by the White House, but the New England moderate politely turned the President down. Snowe’s spokesman, John Gentzel, told Fox it was because her leadership had not chosen her to attend.

Thus when it came to a choice of extraordinary opportunity to fight for her constituents, take a seat at the table, demonstrate the independence that she asserts is her mark, and place politics above party, Senator Snowe made the choice of absolute loyalty to, rigid obedience to, and unbending conformity to the party of NO over Maine citizens.

Reform Rx: Giving health care a nose job

From the Wall Street Journal:

Perhaps it's not that America spends too much on health care, but that other nations don't spend enough.

This the conclusion of an opinion piece penned by Dr. Mark B. Constantian, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon from New Hampshire declaring that we have great health care by singing the same tired conservative hypnotic hymn:

Certainly some goes to inefficiencies, corporate profits, and costs that should be lowered by professional liability reform and national, free-market insurance access by allowing for competition across state lines.

The subhead on this opinion piece asks, “Isn't 'responsiveness' what medicine is all about?” The author seems to say that if we can deliver on one selective segment out of the vast array of health care performance indicators, and this one is dubious when it comes to results, then cost, quality, and other factors are minor matters. Perhaps all we need is a talented plastic surgeon to put a better face on US health care.

In Maine one has access to the full text of current and past articles in the WSJ. If the above online link is "locked", use Maine's virtual library: MARVEL ,to access articles with a state library card or by registering online.

Reform Rx - Private Options are the Future!

Not quite at Christmas but some Maine citizens could get a late present from Senators Snowe and Collins courtesy of their unyielding support of only private options.

AP update today:

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine has proposed a 22.9 percent rate increase for two health insurance plans targeting individuals.

The filing comes as Anthem awaits a judge's ruling on an earlier rate case. Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Koffman last spring denied Anthem's proposed 18 percent rate hike for its individual insurance plans. Instead, she approved a revised request for a 10.9 percent increase, which provided for a zero percent profit margin.

Reform Rx - Change, Yes We Will

The bills have passed. We did not get everything we desired and need to understand and accept for the present that the conference committee on the combined bill will be a compromising committee. What we have today is largely what we will see in the bill that will pass both the House and Senate and be health care reform...for now.

One perspective to view health care reform from is the historical development of Social Security. The original legislation in 1935 had many coverage gaps and was a far weaker program than it is today. Significant amendments to the act in 1939 and 1950 (when it became much more universal) along with the constant attention to improving the program's effectiveness to the present day are a result of expanding on Franklin Roosevelt's vision.

The public option, the dissolution of the insurance cartel, and single payer are not sacrificed forever.

Reform Rx: Stock Tip

No comment nor investment advice on this sad state of affairs reported by Huffington Post:

The rise in stock prices has been particularly striking in the period since Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said on October 27 that he would filibuster a Senate health care reform bill if it included a public option - a threat that caused Senate leaders to cave without much of a fight. Here's a quick breakdown of major health insurance company stock performance from
Oct. 27 to Friday's market close:

Coventry Health Care, Inc. is up 31.6 percent;
CIGNA Corp. is up 29.1 percent;
Aetna Inc. is up 27.1 percent;
WellPoint, Inc. is up 26.6 percent;
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is up 20.5 percent;
And Humana Inc. is up 13.6 percent.

By comparsion, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is only up 2.3 percent during that time; the NASDAQ Composite is up a (relatively) paltry 1.4 percent.

Thanks Joe. (CT-I*)
* Insurance Party

Reform Rx: Collins goes to 7-11

An excerpt from Senator Susan Collins’ statement on deciding to vote against health care reform:

It is unfair that Republicans were allowed to offer only seven amendments to a bill that affects every single citizen and one-sixth of our nation's economy.

Unfair? Seven? Of course it depends on what Senator Collins is counting to make her "it is unfair" point I counted twenty-four (24) significant amendments or amending motions with the following eleven (11) offered by Republicans. Collins math lesson: 11 out of 24 = 45%, not bad for having 40% of the seats. By the way, many of us in Maine think that Susan Collin has been unfair to us in regard to fighting for our health care needs.

Here are the seven, I mean eleven Republican offerings (Source Slate):

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's motion to delay taxes used to pay for the bill until the bill is actually implemented. Set aside Dec. 16, 56-41.

Republican Sen. Mike Crapo's motion to strip the bill of any provisions that will result in a tax increase for individuals earning less than $200,000 or families earning less than $250,000. The obvious point of this amendment was to embarrass President Obama for violating his promise that health care wouldn't impose taxes on this group (which, for the most part, it won't). Failed Dec. 15, 45-54.

Republican Sen. John McCain's motion to send the bill back to the finance committee so it can extend to all Medicare Advantage beneficiaries the special deal Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won for his Florida constituents. Score one for McCain: This amendment shines a spotlight on a cheesy political bargain. Nelson, after trying unsuccessfully in the finance committee to "grandfather" (i.e., maintain for existing beneficiaries) benefit levels for all current Medicare Advantage recipients, got a narrower provision inserted providing relief to Medicare Advantage recipients living in certain "local areas" as determined by a complex formula that fits South Florida like a glove. McCain is in effect saying: Hey pal, share the wealth! Can you blame him? The motion failed Dec. 8, 42-57.

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg's amendment (2942) requiring Medicare savings to be used to "save Medicare." Gregg is the author of a Dec. 1 letter to fellow Republicans offering parliamentary tips on how to obstruct health reform. So don't waste too much attention on this. Failed Dec. 7, 43-56.

Republican Sen. John Ensign's amendment (2927) limiting contingency fees to malpractice lawyers to one-third of any awards of $150,000 or less and one-quarter of any awards of more than $150,000. Not an entirely terrible idea. Failed Dec. 6, 32-66.

Republican Mike Johanns' motion to strip from the health reform bill $42 billion in cuts to home health care agencies. Failed Dec. 5, 41-53.

Republican Sen. John Thune's amendment (2901) removing Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS), a proposed new voluntary program for nursing-home and other long-term care insurance, from the bill. Failed Dec. 4, 51-47. (This amendment required 60 votes to pass.)

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's motion to strip the bill of cuts to the privately administered Medicare Advantage program. Failed Dec. 4, 41-57.

Republican Sen. John McCain's motion to strip the bill of Medicare cuts. McCain proposed more than twice as many Medicare cuts to fund his own health plan during the 2008 election. McCain is unbelievably touchy about this! His amendment failed Dec. 3, 42-58.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski's amendment (2836) barring the U.S. Preventive Task Force from being used to deny coverage for anything. Failed Dec. 3, 41-59.

Republican Sen. David Vitter's amendment (2808) amending Mikulski's amendment (see below) to prevent the United States Preventive Task Force from restricting mammograms, which it can't do anyway. (Vitter is a well-known feminist.) Passed by unanimous consent Dec. 2.

Reform Rx – End Results Count Most

Senator Barbara Mikulski’s amendment to the Senate’s health care bill to promote and expand preventive healthcare for women passed yesterday on a 61 to 39 vote.

The amendment is in part a political reaction to the controversy that arose over the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s updated guidelines regarding mammograms for women in their 40s. The conservative fear machine spun the Task Force report into an ugly specter of rationing. Both Senators Snowe and Collins voted with the Democrats on the amendment which received a great deal of coverage similar to that from Health Leaders Media:

The amendment, which calls for coverage of screening procedures, such as mammographies and Pap smears, would also cover cervical cancer, postpartum depression, heart disease and diabetes. The amendment received some bipartisan support with three Republicans—Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), Sen. Susan Collins (ME), and David Vitter (LA)—voting for it.

We can expect Senators Snowe and Collins to vote for several amendments during the course of the debate on issues on which they are routinely lauded as moderates. Amendment debates and occasional supportive votes on all of these matters may create an impression of moderation but in the end, voting for final legislation that contains substantive health care reform with a robust public option is the vote that counts.

That final vote needs to be where we focus considerable effort to influence our Senators to a greater degree than the insurance industry. What we do not want is Senators Snowe and Collins to earn moderate accolades for voting on a bunch of amendments and then voting down the final bill because of cost, government control, or public option opposition. We cannot afford to be cheated in the end with their explanation of “I worked so hard to improve the bill but the gosh darn Democrats just made it impossible in the end to support in good conscience because of blah, blah, blah...”

And we also must avoid a watered down bill that is not substantive or carrying a robust public option because Senators Snowe and Collins traded a few amendment votes along the way in exchange for the watering down of other key provisions. Those means would not justify the ends.

Reform Rx – Shoot to Kill

An August Reform Rx piece entitled Unreal, Unhealthy, Un-American covered a subject that one would never think of being part of the health care debate: guns. The column piece was written in reaction to the carrying of guns to town hall meetings or near Presidential speaking events by right-wing fanatics to inject intimidation into the health care debate.

Imagine how my ears perked up this morning when I heard NPR’s Cokie Roberts reporting on health care reform bills saying:

And add to that, Renee, we have these continuing fights over abortion and immigration. And now we're discovering there are going to be new fights over guns in the insurance bill. And so, the work just gets harder and harder to get it passed. (Emphasis mine.)

The full NPR report can be listened to here and the passage above is at about 2:40:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120676331

How are guns and the intrusion of this divisive issue being scatter shot into the debate? A tour around the internet yielded these insights of attempts to poison health care reform:

The Examiner

The day before the Senate passed the $848 billion health bill on a party-line vote, the Virginia-based Gun Owners of America sent out a mass alert to its 300,000 members, warning them that the legislation "will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database. ... This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned or any determination of post traumatic stress disorder or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms."

The Freedom Medium

They will attempt to make their case by presenting statistics showing that gun violence causes health care resources to be spent in ways that could be better utilized in other areas.
Of course, many of the American public will fall for this gibberish, not realizing that it is simply another ploy by the Obama administration to drum up support for an increasingly unpopular health care reform bill, while having the added bonus of being an assault on Second Amendment rights as well.

Buckeye Firearms Association

Don't forget the new taxes on guns and ammo to help provide insurance for those poor Crips, Bloods, Triad, Mongols and Mexican Mafia members who find themselves suffering from uninsured gunshot wounds incurred during a drug deal gone wrong. The anti-gun possibilities are limited only by the imagination.
Please don't delude yourself into thinking that this would only be part of any "public option" insurance plan. The private insurance companies are going to be in direct competition with any of the pre-existing or new government insurance plans, so if the public plans get an "upcharge" for gun ownership you know the private ones are going to demand this extra money, too.

All right-wing forces are allied against health care reform and every conceivable issue group’s attack will need to be countered. In this case, the fact is that there is absolutely nothing in the two health care bills that addresses or has any intended consequence regarding guns. Period. Rinse and repeat: period. Apparently there is no honor on the right; if a bill cannot be legitimately defeated, just assassinate it.

Reform Rx – The 2011 and 2013 Amendments

During the last couple of weeks, gaining perspective on the two health care reform acts working their way through Congress has been a priority over commentary. Observing whether or not the public option is being so weakened as to make it ineffective has been a constant concern. Watching the developing and predicted force feeding of abortion issue politics as a poison pill within the debate has been disquieting…more doses unfortunately will be forthcoming.

On balance, not everything in these bills is as progressive as one might desire but with liberal Representatives and Senators we can trust staying with the process and compromises, it continues to be reasonable to be supportive of both bills prior to conference committee work at some time in the future. Perfect is always the enemy of the imperfect. If the outcome is a marked step forward toward regulating insurance company discriminatory practices, will increase access to quality and affordable care, and develops a public option, we will have a framework on which to build, modify, and expand further substantive health care reforms in the near future.

One perspective to view health care reform from is the historical development of Social Security. The original legislation in 1935 had many coverage gaps and was a far weaker program than it is today. Significant amendments to the act in 1939 and 1950 (when it became much more universal) along with the constant attention to improving the program’s effectiveness to the present day are a result of expanding on Franklin Roosevelt’s vision. Republicans do also recognize that health reform today will open the door to additional reforms tomorrow. It is no wonder that right-wing efforts to engage in revisionist history and to vilify FDR and the New Deal are at a fever pitch on scream radio and conservative blabsites.

In Maine, once again our efforts must be focused on preventing our Senators from derailing or damaging the initial legislation.