Jezebel 
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New York, 9:06 AM
Fri Dec 11
66 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/19/09
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I don't get people.
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and Stupak ain't your friend
Reconciliation
Won't bring this to an end.
Blood is on the Senate floor
Reid is on the knife
Harry's got your number
And Harry says its right.
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/random Glengarry movie reference
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[www.nytimes.com]
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#tips
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#tips
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But not David Vitter. I'd make him sit in his wet diaper until he was covered in a rash. Because he sucks that hard.
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And thanks for the image...lol
11/19/09
I would also like to ask for an option that says, "Please give all my tax money to schools, social services, science research and the establishment of wildlife refuges." This is fun! No wonder all the anti-choice loonies love it so much!
#tips
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W used it to pass all 3 of his hideous tax cuts to the rich.
He also tried to use it to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling but failed.
Turn around is fair play, I say.
11/19/09
This does not solve the problem. It helps the people who live in states that are willing to help their people. Having the ability to opt out means this will fail. We all have to be in it to make it work .
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mine does not include pregnancy care, dental, eyeglasses, or alternative therapies, etc. glad to have it but damn bcbs goes up every year- about $100.
11/19/09
I wish I could just transfer our health care to you guys! I mean, it has its problems (needs more funding) but damn, we're doing okay. (Unless you live in Queensland, then you're fucked.)
11/19/09
It is suggested that the states would be too embarrassed to opt-out as it would mean cutting benefits.
Andrew Sullivan on this: The genius of the opt-out is that it coopts the states' rights argument (just as ending the prohibition on marijuana does); it has the potential to make "liberalism' popular again; it has easily demonized opponents - the health insurance industry; and it forces Republicans not to rail against socialism in the abstract but to oppose actual benefits for the working poor in reality.
11/19/09
At his last job, my husband and I were paying $650 per month for really good coverage- included dental and such- with very low co-pays/ deductibles. (His company paid the same, BTW, so the total cost to cover two people was $1300 per month.) He changed jobs and we're now paying about $250 per month (again, they match, so the total is $500), but we have no dental and our co-pays/ deductibles are huge. For instance, our insurance only covered about 20% of the anaesthia bill for a small surgery I had to have this summer. Both of us are in perfect health with no pre-existing conditions or risk factors, BTW.
One of the issues for us is joint coverage. Our insurer has two plan types: single person and family. If we had two or six or twenty kids under 18 we'd be paying the same we are now; if my company offered insurance, my husband's single coverage would cost about 40% of what we pay for both of us. There's just no "couple" coverage. I guess they figure were dinks (double income, no kids) and so we can afford to pay more than singles or parents, but it seems a little unfair.
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#tips
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Can someone help an English expat get her head around this - what is an 'exchange'? And if your healthcare comes with your job, you still get to choose a plan with abortion, right? Or does your employer choose? Also, side issue, this 97% thing - who are the 3% who won't get the option for free healthcare?
11/19/09
Here you go:
c) Exceptions-
`(1) DEPENDENTS- Subsection (a) shall not apply to any individual for any taxable year if a deduction is allowable under section 151 with respect to such individual to another taxpayer for any taxable year beginning in the same calendar year as such taxable year.
`(2) NONRESIDENT ALIENS- Subsection (a) shall not apply to any individual who is a nonresident alien.
`(3) INDIVIDUALS RESIDING OUTSIDE UNITED STATES- Any qualified individual (as defined in section 911(d)) (and any qualifying child residing with such individual) shall be treated for purposes of this section as covered by acceptable coverage during the period described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of section 911(d)(1), whichever is applicable.
`(4) INDIVIDUALS RESIDING IN POSSESSIONS OF THE UNITED STATES- Any individual who is a bona fide resident of any possession of the United States (as determined under section 937(a)) for any taxable year (and any qualifying child residing with such individual) shall be treated for purposes of this section as covered by acceptable coverage during such taxable year.
`(5) RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION-
`(A) IN GENERAL- Subsection (a) shall not apply to any individual (and any qualifying child residing with such individual) for any period if such individual has in effect an exemption which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof described in section 1402(g)(1) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.
11/19/09
1. An exchange is a system where different insurance companies can sell their plans to people who don't have employer coverage and some proposals will also let small businesses purchase through the exchange. It will have rules limiting what types of plans can be offered and how premiums can be determined.
2. If your health care comes with your job, you often have no choice at all. Many employers offer just one plan and you take it or leave it. Other employers offer a choice of 2-4 plans that cost different amounts. But your employer is choosing the plans offered and often, they don't understand what they are doing and just taking what the insurance broker tells them is in their price range.
3. Health reform is not providing 97% of Americans with free health care. Only people with extremely low incomes will get free health care. Everybody else will have to pay or have their employer pay. Most employers only pay a portion of the health premium. It can easily cost people $400 or $500 or even more a month to insure their families through their employer plan. The reform proposals will offer government subsidies to people with low incomes, but many will get subsidies that only pay for part of the cost.
4. The reason some people won't get coverage is that they still have to pay for it and they won't or can't pay for it, that some states won't have exchanges so affordable coverage won't be available, or they are undocumented immigrants who don't have employer coverage.
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Now I understand it more, I don't get why we're celebrating this. It seems like in many cases, a woman's access to abortion will still be in someone else's hands - her employer's.
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Insurance you have through the military has never covered elective abortion. Through Medicaid, only a few states offer coverage beyond life endangerment, incest or rape.
This is a great tool, click on the links to the left to see the key difference in the bills: [www.nytimes.com]
But you're right - we're "celebrating" this because Reid is a Mormon and our expectations were low...
11/19/09
Bravo Latoya and Jez.
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While their coverage may be more inflammatory than explanatory, I think the fact that Congress has been debating this bill in the public eye, rather than as a footnote to news coverage of the executive office, probably had a significant effect on bringing both parties closer to their base in the discussions.
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#tips
11/19/09
Please or please, just this once, let reasonable compromise and sensible thought prevail in my country's government.
Amen,
-BB
11/19/09
I REFUSE TO CONGRATULATE AN ELECTED OFFICIAL FOR "ALLOWING" WOMEN CONTINUED ACCESS TO A FUCKING LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE!!!!!!!!
i'm sorry, but i am not under any illusions that Reid did this out of concern for women and their right to choose. he is anti-choice. 29% NARAL rating. he's voted for all sorts of heinous bills that want to restrict the right to abortion until its meaningless. this is a 100% political calculation and i do not doubt for a second that he will compromise on this in order to pass healthcare reform.
also, how the hell is this guy the top Dem in the Senate?! did he not read the party platform? ugh.
11/19/09
Is exactly how I feel about most of our government. It's like how people give dads accolades when they are merely present for the raising of their children. It's like, WTF? How are these things considered above and beyond?
Yesterday I read to my partner the thing about the 18 year old getting an award for an act of extreme humanity (or something) for calling the cops about the gang rape in CA. He was like, "That's nice. But it's fucked up that calling the cops about a fucking gang rape is considered an "extreme" act of humanity."
All these things are basic human decency.
11/19/09
He is also ripping the exchange to shreds by creating an exchange in every state rather than one national exchange. So people who live in Maine, Rhode Island and Delaware won't have the opportunity to participate in an exchange with as large a pool as people who live in California and New York.
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And two equal benefit plans offered by the same company will not be taxed similarly; the more expensive - PPO for example as opposed to HMO - will be taxed.
This is my understanding of Reid's bill - I'm still reading...
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It is not just that a PPO is more expensive than an HMO. A PPO in Maine or Southern Texas will probably be more expensive than the exact same PPO in California. Because health care costs more in Maine and Southern Texas. The exact same PPO will cost more to an employer who happens to employ multiple people with HIV or people getting transplants than it does to an employer who employs primarily health individuals averaging about 30 years in age. Insurance charges more if the people use the insurance more.
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But I see what you're saying and I found this and read a bit more:
[T]he Finance Committee... approved a 40% excise tax on insurance companies that offer "Cadillac" health plans that cost more than $8,000 for individuals.
Labor unions and other critics say the Cadillac tax would hit too many middle-income consumers whose health premiums are high because they live in high-cost areas, not because the plans offer luxury benefits.
Reid, who is facing a tough reelection campaign with the strong backing of organized labor, is exploring ways to scale back the Cadillac tax. He is considering the Medicare payroll tax hike to make up for the revenue that would be lost if the Cadillac tax applied to fewer plans.
[www.latimes.com]
I still think Reid's bill is superior to the House bill as a whole. And it's reassuring to know that he's working toward an even better bill.
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As far as I can tell, wonks feel like costs can be contained by one or both of these things: consumer spending and delivery reform. Consumer spending advocates are under the impression that many employer-covered folks spend too much on health care (not the ones in the trouble zone) because they have a tax-free health care piggy bank. Non-group types have to pay taxes on insurance, so each dollar of income they would allocate to health care is worth less. This Cadillac tax thing was an attempt to capture these alleged people with posh plans so they won't order them anymore and thereby stop inflating prices.
But now, this was just a poor man's attempt at yanking away the employer tax exemption, which creates this imbalance in purchasing power and keeps people chained to their jobs. It would have a consumption effect by catching all the "Cadillac" types, leave the non-group people no worse off, and would level the consumer playing field, freeing people from their jobs' group plans to pursue the public plan (pleasepleaseplease). What I gathered was if employees, union or sick or otherwise, get hosed by this tax, you lob some subsidies at them. And as with the mandate, all its possible flaws aside, this revocation would drum up some tax income for the program. But oh, Barack Obama must never impose any sort of tax on anyone making less than $250k or the universe will explode.
I know you and I disagreed (amicably, happy to say) about this earlier because you are in favor of total-market tax exemption (non-group people included, that is), thereby liberalizing the consumer market and saving the high cost types from getting hosed. As I recall, you said the entire bill would be paid for, tax-wise, with wealthy income tax hikes. But then, nothing is done about consumer spending, so in theory no cost-curve bending and no increased efficiency. We'll be playing millionaire tax-hike catch-up with the cost curve until we run out of rich people.
So okay, fine, maybe I'll entertain the idea that consumer spending has little to do with rising costs, but that means the legislature has to pass another bill following this one focusing on cost reduction. Maybe some of the stuff this Leonhardt guy proposes will be on the menu.
[www.nytimes.com]
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