Labor Update: What's in the Health Care Bill for Iowa Workers? by Tracy Kurowski
By this time next week, we could finally have a health care bill on President Obama’s desk.
I stress the word "could" because if we’ve learned anything in the past year, it is that no legislation is a sure thing. Speaker Pelosi, however, feels confident enough in her whip count that she is ready to schedule a vote by Friday or Saturday of this week.
Health care reform’s final passage will be a combination of asking members of the House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the bill, while simultaneously passing a series of amendments dealing with the bill’s financing, that would then be volleyed back to the Senate to pass through a reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority of fifty-one votes. So long as the Senate is honestly gauging their whip count, by next Monday, rather than posting a blog, I’m just going to post clip art of champagne, balloons, confetti, smiley faces and dancing figures.
And now that we are at the end game, it’s important to resist the temptation to look back at this point and figure out why something like the desire to provide health care access to all of a nation’s citizens should have conjured up so much controversy. At an interfaith forum on health care reform late last year, two of the panelists rightly agreed that the debate we had been having throughout 2009 brought out more heat than light. But whatever compromises are in the final outcome, the significance of having passed a health care overhaul will mean an awful lot for both improving on the bill’s flaws as we move forward, as well as for moving any other legislation over the rest of Obama’s tenure as President.
So let me talk now about the parts of the bill that most affect labor. The forty percent excise tax on benefits in the Senate version stands out as the most egregious flaw of the bill. However, the version going through reconciliation would reduce the effect that will have on working families by eighty percent. The reconciled bill would delay implementation of the tax until 2018. This is only fair since implementing it any earlier would undermine the negotiated agreements currently in place – at the expense to both workers and employers. By delaying implementation until 2018, not only is there an opportunity to re-visit financing of the health care bill, but even if left untouched, the delay gives workers and employers the opportunity to negotiate future contracts based on the impact of such an enormous tax.
The reconciled bill also resets the excise tax threshold at $27,500 for family coverage and $10,200 for individual plans, exempting many working families. The threshold excludes vision and dental benefits and is adjusted higher if age and gender of workforce increases costs. Finally, the threshold will be adjusted if costs outpace projected increases.
Because these modifications reduce revenue from the excise tax from $116 billion to $33 billion over ten years, the reconciled version pays for reform by increasing the Medicare tax on tax payers earning over $200,000 (families over $250,000) per year. It would also for the first time put a Medicare tax on unearned income.
There is no employer mandate to provide coverage, but there will be penalties for employers with greater than fifty full-time employees. For employers in the building trades, the number being negotiated right now is five full-time employees and payroll of $250,000 or more. The penalty for employers not providing health care benefits is increased to $2000 per worker up from $750 in the current Senate version.
For retirees, the bill would get rid of the doughnut hole that hung seniors out to dry when it came to paying for their prescription costs.
The deal with Nebraska is gone (take that Blue-Dog Bill Nelson!) And by some accounts, there’s a chance for a public option to re-emerge.
It improves on federal funding to states to offset costs of Medicaid – currently a heavy burden for states and retains qualification for Medicaid for those up to 133% of poverty level. For moderate – income earners, the subsidy will be increased for individuals and families up to four times poverty level. It also puts a cap on out-of-pocket costs so illness won’t bankrupt families anymore. And for working families who are moderate to higher end wage earners, there are subsidies available so your premium for employer-provided coverage will never be more than 9.8% of income.
The bill permits states to establish a single-payer system for themselves – something people in progressive states may want to start work on at a much-smaller scale – remember women’s enfranchisement only happened after a critical mass of states already allowed women the right to vote.
The fight for comprehensive health care reform has gone on for decades. It’s absolutely senseless to toss out the current version because it fails to please everyone. The last time comprehensive health care reform was attempted was in 1992. If reform fails again, are we willing to wait until 2028 to revisit it? Compounding the current rate of health insurance premium increases – which were anywhere from ten to sixty percent this year – and you‘ll soon realize that doing nothing is not an option, that is unless you’re ok with becoming a third-world nation.
Tracy
Kurowski has been active in the labor movement
for ten years, first as a member of AFSCME 3506, when she taught adult
education classes at the City Colleges of Chicago. She moved to the
Quad Cities in 2007 where she worked as political coordinator with the
Quad City Federation of Labor, and as a caseworker for Congressman
Bruce Braley from 2007 - 2009.
Tracy Kurowski writes a labor update every
Monday on Blog for Iowa
Health
Care Reform Update: Covering the Uninsured in Iowa (and Illinois) is a Moral Issue
by Alta Price, M.D.
Spring brings Cover the Uninsured Week, March 14 – 20, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I wrote about it last year, and you can read my post with more details here.
Check out the state-specific information for Iowa here. About 92 percent of Iowans can get health care when they need it, although if you scroll down the page for details you’ll see this is based on data collected in 2005-2006. With the poor economy, I assume more than 8 percent of Iowans today can not get health care when they need it. (The number of Illinois residents that can get health care when they need it is about 88 percent.)
For those of us on the left, health care is a right, and making sure everyone in the richest country in the world has access to health care is a moral issue. Since Americans share values of fairness, equity, and compassion for the less fortunate, our leaders should be making a stronger argument from a moral framework. I’ll quote this David Ignatius column from the Washington Post How Obama can shift the health-care debate:
Here’s what I want Obama to say: A just society assures its citizens’ basic needs. It protects their “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” irrespective of the circumstances they were born into. Citizenship in a great country should not be a DNA lottery, or a case of survival of the richest. A nation has a moral obligation to care for its people, and if it fails to do so, it is a lesser country.
Both the Senate and House health care reform bills that have passed Congress extend coverage to millions who are currently uninsured – a major step towards a more just society.
If you look at polls, like this Pew Research Center poll from January, you will see that only 26% of self-identified Republicans, versus 75% of Democrats and 41% of Independents, think providing health insurance to the uninsured is a “top priority.” Of course there is much more to the bill that Republicans and Independents will like, but they really don’t care about the 30 million people who will finally get health insurance if this bill passes.
Tell your Republican friends that health care security is a major benefit of the health care reform bills for those currently insured. Just because you have insurance today does not mean you will have it tomorrow.
Without reform more employers will drop coverage.
Without reform if you lose your job because of a serious illness, you may not be able to afford to keep your insurance even for the limited period of time you are entitled to continue participating in your employer’s plan under COBRA.
Without reform people who get sick, or have a seriously ill family member, will continue to be dropped by their insurer.
Without reform people with pre-existing conditions will not be able to get health insurance if they want to start a small business or work for an employer who doesn’t provide insurance. Most of the people who go bankrupt because of health care expenses actually have health insurance.
Without reform, people with health insurance will continue to face financial ruin when they use up the annual or lifetime limits of their policy, or discover their insurance is junk insurance when they try to get the care they need. (See also this excellent editorial from the New York Times – If Reform Fails).
So even if your Republican friends don’t care about the 22,000 – 45,000 Americans who die every year due to lack of insurance, this bill may save their life some day should they have the misfortune of becoming ill or losing their job when they already have a pre-existing condition. (Note: The number of deaths varies depending upon the study/methodology.)
For those who do care, the Health Care Reform Issue Forum of Progressive Action for the Common Good, together with the Illinois Campaign for Better Health Care, will be having a “die-in” on Thursday, March 11, 2010, at noon. We are having the event in Rock Island, Illinois (we are a bi-state progressive community) at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 4501 7th Ave.
We will be using some of our Handprints for Health Care panels to depict the number of people who die every day from lack of insurance. Some participants will further dramatize the plight of the uninsured by “dying” – crumpling to the ground. The “die-in” will be videotaped and put up at YouTube. (If you want to come and be in the video, arrive at 11:30 am, dressed in black, for the rehearsal!)
Next week I’ll bring the link to the YouTube video along!
Alta
Price is a physician practicing Pathology in Davenport, Iowa. One of
the original Deaniacs, she stays involved with Democracy for America,
Iowa, and the Quad Cities. She advocates for quality, affordable health
care for all, primarily as a volunteer with Progressive Action for the
Common Good (Health Care Reform Issue Forum).Watch for Dr. Price's Health Care Reform Update every Tuesday here on Blog for Iowa. E-Mail Alta Price
"While few know this history, health care has gotten so far
away from the notion of caring for the population of our state that we need a
reminder of why our growing health care system was created in the first place."
After breakfast with a colleague and a visit with my
octogenarian mother, I headed north on Marquette Street from Davenport towards
Interstate 80 and home. Marquette takes me past my birthplace where Mercy
Hospital stood a few yards from the road. The building where I was born is
gone and is now a construction site where workers were hanging vast expanses of
glass on a new building on Friday. According to the sign, the new building
would be home to yet another medical group.
As I crested the hill, on the left was the wrought iron
fence around the
cemetery where Mother Mary Borromeo Johnson of the Sisters of Mercy is
buried. Mother Borromeo and four other sisters opened the first hospital in
Iowa. They admitted its first patient on December 8, 1869 in Davenport. It is
noteworthy that the medical staff was not organized until after the
hospital opened. The hospital was established to serve the “neglected insane”
and the “sick poor.” For that, they did not need a medical staff right away. In
1873, Mother Borromeo established an emergency clinic in downtown Davenport to
serve cholera victims during the epidemic. Today one can still see the unmarked
mass grave of some of its victims. In some ways, the Sisters of Mercy were the
public health system during this cholera epidemic.
In 1873, Mother Borromeo and three other sisters arrived in
Iowa City and opened the second hospital in Iowa. Mercy Hospital was to serve
as a clinical setting for the University of Iowa Medical College. When we look
at the medical complex that has grown in Iowa City to be the University of Iowa
Hospitals and Clinics, the Veterans Administration Hospital and Mercy Hospital,
it is hard to imagine those
four sisters riding from the train station sitting on bags of grain in a
farm wagon to open the hospital. When the H1N1 ethics
committee was counting the number of medical service providers for vaccine distribution
last year, we figured that there were some fifteen thousand of them in Johnson
County. The health care system has grown since that initial wagon trip.
The Sisters of Mercy are no longer directly involved in
managing the health care enterprise that their early efforts helped spawn in Iowa. There
was talk about moving the cemetery where Mother Borromeo is buried in 1994 when Genesis Health System assumed
management of the Davenport hospital from the Sisters of Mercy. I am
glad they didn’t. While few know this history, health care has gotten so far
away from the notion of caring for the population of our state that we need a
reminder of why our growing health care system was created in the first place.
Sometimes it seems like only a few of us remember the work of Mother Borromeo
and her sisters.
As Leonard Cohen wrote of the Sisters of Mercy,
"If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, they
will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem." Their work now belongs to us.
If you get a chance, read Sister Mary Brigid Conlon R.S.M.’s
From Obscurity to Distinction: the Story of Mercy Hospital. A few
copies are still available in thrift shops and on Amazon.com.
More importantly, for what must seem like the hundredth time, contact your US
Congressman and Senators and urge them to do something to reform the broken
health care system. If not now, then when?
~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace.E-mail Paul Deaton
**BFIA ACTION ALERT**
Click on the links to write our elected officials now and ask them to vote for the health care reform bills before the congress. If we don't do this now, then when?
Health Care for America Rally in Des Moines, Iowa Our friends at Iowa Citizens Action Network wanted us to pass along this flyer regarding a rally on health care in Des Moines on Wednesday, February 17th. If you have any questions, contact Mary McCann at mmccann@iowacan.org
ICAN is Iowa's largest grass roots consumer and environmental watchdog
organization, with more than 6000 individual members across the state.
ICAN is also an alliance of community, religious, labor, senior, farm,
environmental and civil rights organizations -- a coalition that is
working together to raise the living standards and improve the quality
of life for all people in Iowa.
Report on SEIU/Change That Works Health Care Affordability Summit By Caroline Vernon
Washington, DC - On January 13th, SEIU/Change That Works and health care reform coalition partners mobilized labor members and health care advocates from across the country for a national day of action, calling on legislators to adopt 3 essential aspects of the House & Senate bills; The 3 A’s:Affordability, Accessibility, and Accountability.
Before a crowd of 150, many pro-reform legislators spoke passionately about the need to make health care more affordable, as the conference committee decides the fate of meaningful health care legislation.
Everyone in attendance agreed, our #1 priority should be making real reform affordable for working families and setting premiums and out-of-pocket costs at levels that are fair and reasonable. Adequate subsidies are seen to be essential to the fundamental goal of guaranteeing quality affordable health care to all Americans. SEIU and coalition partners, PICO, Families USA, and other community groups called on legislators and the Obama administration to adopt the following 5 components of the House & Senate bills:
• The safety net for the most vulnerable in our communities is stronger in the House through an expansion of Medicaid to those making 150% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) or less. • The House bill offers lower premiums and caps out-of pocket costs at levels that lower income families earning less than 250% of the FPL (less than $41,000 for a family of 3) can better afford. • The Senate bill makes care more affordable for families who are between 250% and 400% of the FPL. • The House surtax impacting only the wealthiest Americans, is more favorable than the Senate’s excise tax that would adversely impact millions of middle class families, resulting in benefit cuts, increasing premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. • The House approach to ensuring employers share responsibility and contribute to the coverage of part time workers. If not, employers will have a strong incentive to reduce the number of hours for full time workers so they are not penalized for not offering coverage – there must be accountability.
Reformers also advocated on behalf of seniors having expanded access to affordable medications by closing the gap or “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage.
Overall, the House bill makes coverage much more affordable for working families. To give you an example of the difference, a single worker earning only $17,500 per year will pay 16% of their annual income for health insurance ($2,801) under the Senate bill, while paying only 8% ($1,416) of their annual income for insurance under the House bill – a very substantial difference. Additionally, under provisions found in the Senate bill, a low income family of 3 that earns $41,000 a year would pay an annual average of $7,000 or 17% of their annual income on healthcare; $2,134 more than under the House bill. The same family could pay a maximum of $9,000 a year on healthcare; $2,175 more than the maximum under HR 3962.
SEIU members who were interviewed during the day of national action spoke about why they and their families need affordable, comprehensive coverage as a part of reform. Their personal accounts are truly moving. Watch it here.
Some of the Congressmen and women who spoke at the Health Care Affordability Summit included, Congressman Ensign from New York, Donna Edwards from Maryland, Christopher Murphy and Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, and Congressman Dingle from Michigan who put the fight for health care justice in historical perspective by reminding us, the fight to enact Social Security and Medicare in this country was as intense and controversial as our current struggle to pass meaningful health care reform legislation in 2010. Congressman Dingle, has been a member of Congress for 54 years.
After the summit, advocates lobbied their members of congress on affordability. SEIU Iowa President, Cathy Glasson, and I had an opportunity to meet with Congressmen Loebsack and Braley who both said they were in agreement and supported adopting the 5 key components we had outlined from the House and Senate bills that would make health care more affordable. Both Congressmen indicated they had met with President Obama just the day before to discuss compromises in the House and Senate bills. When we addressed the issue of favoring the House surtax over the Senate’s excise tax as a funding mechanism, both congressmen expressed disappointment that the president was “bent” on adopting the Senate’s version which would place the burden on working families rather than the wealthiest Americans. As you may recall, this is NOT what Obama campaigned on. Since our visit, we know organized labor has fought for acceptable compromises which would tax cadillac plans costing over $8,900 rather than $8,000 as outlined in the Senate bill.
I also addressed the need to fix the 2 year waiting list for individuals who qualify for Social Security Disability with our Iowa congressmen. As it stands today, recipients are told they must wait 2 years before becoming eligible for Medicare. This is nothing short of cruel. Why would anyone deny disabled individuals access to healthcare? I have to wonder, what was Congress thinking? Why would anyone intentionally withhold health care from people who have met all the many difficult requirements to demonstrate they have a serious medical need which resulted in disability? Is it their hope that folks will just die off or what? Do they not understand what kind of impact this has on people’s lives or the amount of damage that can ensue if a chronic condition goes untreated for 2 years? Neither the House or Senate bill addresses this issue. I ask you to please raise your voice and advocate on behalf of these individuals who arguably have the greatest need for care.
Congressman Braley also shared with us his concerns that pro-reform advocates have not countered the “tea baggers” or anti-reform protestors who he and others see everyday on the steps of the Capitol and outside House and Senate offices. Unfortunately, they also garner ALL of the media’s attention, since there is no “visual” pro-reform presence on the Hill. Congressman Braley expressed frustration over the fact that progressives and pro-reform advocates have not mobilized a massive demonstration and show of support for health care reform, countering anti-reformer claims that they are in the majority.
I know there are so many of you who have worked long and hard on meaningful health care reform but NOW is the time to step up the pressure on our elected leaders and hold them to their word -- that includes President Obama. I believe it is also long past time to demonstrate a massive show of support for our elected leaders who continue to work hard for health care reform on behalf of ALL Americans.
I call on organized labor, people of faith, community groups, grassroots organizations, and all other health care advocates to come together and organize/mobilize a Health Care for All March on Washington this Spring; if meaningful legislation is already passed, we can thank our leaders for making it happen, if not, we can address what we need in order to ensure meaningful health care reform. Either way, it’s a win-win and an opportunity to show media pundits and the American people that WE ARE the majority of Americans who overwhelmingly voted for CHANGE in November of 2008. So far, it’s been politics as usual. We need a change we really can believe in…
What do we need? HEALTH CARE! When do we need it? NOW!!!
Labor Leaders Stunned at Latest Health Care Compromise by Tracy Kurowski
Last week, Senator Harry Reid revealed the latest compromise on a health care reform bill.
- No public option - No expansion of Medicare to seniors and retirees age 55 + - Permits annual caps on benefits so long as they are not “unreasonable” The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials. - Mandates that all Americans buy insurance by 2014 or be fined - Retains premium-setting based on age as high as four times the rate for younger people - Preserves bans on drug importation - Inclusion of state option to ban abortion coverage in health insurance exchanges - 40% excise tax on plans worth more than $8,500 per year for individuals and $23,000 for families
Most labor leaders are stunned – not wanting to publicly defame the only real chance at health care reform or cast stones at the very people whose support they need to move forward on labor reform they hope to get to early next year – but privately they must be reeling at what has become a bill with as many – and possibly more - negatives as positives for working people.
The enormous 40% excise tax on health care benefits is probably the most offensive to organized labor which has negotiated long and hard for health care coverage, and in recent years, by sacrificing wages and other benefits to maintain their health care coverage. Democrats defend the tax claiming that it will only affect executives and others who chose to purchase “Cadillac” plans. But under the current version of the Senate bill, one third of workers with employer-provided health coverage would be affected by the proposed excise tax. In later years, even more workers would be affected as their premiums increase at a faster pace than the tax threshold gets adjusted.
The proposal also hits workers who live in rural areas with little to no competition among insurers, and consequently pay up to 30% higher than average costs. Plans for workers in dangerous professions, like steelworkers, miners and building trades, also have higher-cost plans because they experience more work-related health problems.
If implemented, the proposed excise tax could effectively decrease health care coverage by establishing a system by which employers and workers devalue their health care to avoid paying the added tax.
Workers negotiating health care benefits may not even have the opportunity to water down benefits to control costs in some circumstances. According to the actuarial consulting firm Milliman, “whether someone hits the excise tax ceiling is not so much driven by benefit richness as it is by age, gender, profession, health status and the geography of the covered population.”
Characterizing the Senate’s tax on benefits as a shell game, Donna Smith, legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association condemns the proposal, "What it looks like is that most of these excise taxes may cause employers to drop level of coverage for workers. You'd be buying a lower-cost policy with higher out of pockets costs for workers. That's not cost-cutting, that’s cost-shifting."
Labor leaders called an emergency meeting last Wednesday night after the Senate compromise was revealed. Aids described the meeting as emotional, which is not surprising given how much time, effort and money labor unions have poured into the fight for reform over the past year.
After the meeting’s conclusion, they seem united in accepting the Senate’s capitulation to the insurance industry and refocused their fight on the version of the bill already passed out of the House.
Trumka called the Senate bill “inadequate” and declared the fight continues to re-work the bill once it reaches conference committee. In a statement meant to caution the Democrats from accepting too many of the Senate’s compromises, Trumka did note that there will be political ramifications, "If you tax the benefits of workers so that they have less health care," Trumka said, "I would expect them to consider that when voting."
SEIU President Andy Stern concurred with Trumka on passing the bill despite its inadequacies. "It's time for the Senate to send this bill on to conference where the real work will be done. We've come too far, America's waited too long, to turn back now." But in respect to the public option, Stern recognized that bills in conference usually get watered down rather than gussied up, "It's hard to imagine it getting better in conference."
Leo Gerard, President of the United Steel Workers had much harsher words for the bill the following day on the Ed Schulz Show. Girard said President Obama “got Hoodwinked “ by the insurance industry and also predicts dire political consequences if the Democrats settle for the current Senate bill, “I can tell you this — point blank — if we don’t get a meaningful health care bill that reduces costs and has everybody in and doesn’t have an excise tax, has a pay or play for employers, has a public option, or a medicare buy-in, we’re not gonna campaign for any Democrat that voted against this bill, and we’re going to go out and try and defeat them.” "We need to fight for what's right for the country and by fighting for what's right for the country, we'll do what's right for people," Gerard said. "I'm angry as hell."
In the final evaluation, the line in the sand for labor leaders will be whether or not the conference committee bill includes the excise tax on health care benefits. If our benefits are taxed without the benefit of Medicare expansion for retirees, or a public option to keep costs down, you can count on the leadership to oppose the bill. Opposition means they, like the National Organization for Women has already decided to do, actively lobby their representatives and senators to vote it down, and if their elected leaders, however grudgingly, still vote in favor, to have a lot of explaining to do when they ask for labor’s support, money and door knockers in the mid-term elections. For more information on how the tax hurts workers, go to:
Tracy
Kurowski is currently AFL-CIO Community Services Liaison at the United
Way of the Quad City Area. She has been active in the labor movement
for ten years, first as a member of AFSCME 3506, when she taught adult
education classes at the City Colleges of Chicago. She moved to the
Quad Cities in 2007 where she worked as political coordinator with the
Quad City Federation of Labor, and as a caseworker for Congressman
Bruce Braley from 2007 - 2009.
Tracy Kurowski writes a labor update every Monday on Blog for Iowa
**BFIA ACTION ALERT**
Let's not forget about one Iowan in particular who bears responsibility for the watering down of health care reform, and who we can actually do something about next year. If we do not send Grassley home when we have the chance, we all bear responsibility for what he may do next.
No More Compromising on Health Care - Call on Senators to Reject All Public Option-Weakening Amendments Reports from The Hill are that Democratic Senators are preparing to offer a "compromise" amendment to the healthcare bill as soon as next week that would destroy the public option.
It's likely to include every one of the insurance industry's greatest hits - a trigger, state-based co-ops, and could even replace the already bad Opt-Out clause with an even worse one that would require states that want a public option to Opt-In instead.
And what should come as no surprise to anyone, they're likely to still call this new sell-out to the insurance industry a "public option."
No matter what they call it, enough is enough. It's time to stop negotiating with defeat and reject all amendments which weaken the public option.
Some Healthcare Heroes have already decided whose side they're on. Speaking for the American people, here's what Senator Sherrod Brown said about these last-minute attempts to kill real reform:
"We've compromised the public option three times - maybe four depending on how you define it - and this bill's not going to continue to become more pro-insurance-company. End of story."
Senators Bernie Sanders and Roland Burris have made similar statements, but these three Senators can't stand alone. They need us to back them up. Every member of the Democratic Caucus needs to know where we stand.
America stands with Healthcare Heroes who fight for a public option, not Insurance Industry Senators who care more about the insurance interests who fund their campaigns than providing every American real healthcare reform.
We're done negotiating. Enough is enough. The public option in the current Senate bill is our final compromise. ADD YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW
Don't sit these final weeks out no matter how frustrated you are with Democrats in Congress.
We've worked too hard - invested too much - to let them screw this up.
Health Care Reform Update: This Thing Is Going To Work (Or, Woot!) By Alta Price, M.D.
I just heard on the tee vee Harry Reid’s announcement that the health care reform bill in the Senate will include a public plan option, even if it is one with a state level opt out. I felt like titling this post “Woot!” – a term I first learned blogging at DeanforAmerica.com (and still use when Beryllos, my level 80 Night Elf Hunter in World of Warcraft (WoW) wins a major victory). But I decided I probably had to say a little more than woot! So here is a nice article by Paul Krugman, “After Reform Passes”. He starts out this way:
So, how well will health reform work after it passes?
There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m asking that question. After all, serious health reform has long seemed like an impossible dream. And it could yet go all wrong.
But the teabaggers have come and gone, as have the cries of “death panels” and the demonstrations by Medicare recipients demanding that the government stay out of health care. And reform is still on track. Right now it looks highly likely that Congress will, indeed, send a health care bill to the president’s desk. Then what?
I agree with Krugman – I can’t believe what we have accomplished. And to get a Senate bill including the public option, passing with 60 votes no less, going into conference committee with the House is icing on the cake. Thanks for making all those phone calls last week, everyone! Please give yourself a pat on the back, or join me in a joyous “woot!”
We progressives just love to worry, so now we are getting concerned about what happens after the bill passes. Krugman draws upon the Massachusetts experience with health care reform to assure us that our national level bill will indeed help people and be popular. This is not to say there won’t be problems, or that we can just play WoW once the bill passes. We are going to have to stay engaged at the state level until the reforms are fully implemented and will still have work to do on improving access, lowering costs, and fixing the myriads of problems we will still have in our health care system. But this bill we have worked so hard to pass brings us much closer to our goal of quality affordable health care for all. As Krugman says at the end of his column:
This thing is going to work. (Alta shouts: WOOT!)
Alta
Price is a physician practicing Pathology in Davenport, Iowa. One of
the original Deaniacs, she stays involved with Democracy for America,
Iowa, and the Quad Cities. She advocates for quality, affordable health
care for all, primarily as a volunteer with Progressive Action for the
Common Good (Health Care Reform Issue Forum).Watch for Dr. Price's Health Care Reform Update every Tuesday here on Blog for Iowa. E-Mail Alta Price
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
by Tracy Kurowski
