Per Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Providing health care to all Americans is the moral responsibility of our government, consistent with the Preamble in the Constitution. Yet we are being told that it is not possible to have the kind of single payer health system which every industrialized democracy in the world has.

We compromised on single payer by backing a public option, and now we are being asked to compromise the public option with negotiated rates. In conference, we will likely be asked to compromise negotiated rates with a trigger.  In each and every step of the health care debate, the insurance companies have won. If they get hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxpayer subsidies, they get to raise their premiums, and increase their co pays and deductibles, while the public is forced to pay for private insurance, then the insurance companies win big.

If this is the best we can do, then it is time to ask ourselves whether the two-party system is truly capable of representing the American people or whether the system has been so compromised by special interests that we can’t even protect the health of our own people. This is a moment of truth for the Democratic Party.  Will we stand for the people or the insurance companies?

Dennis J. Kucinich
United States Congressman
10th District of Ohio

October 28th, 2009

WASHINGTON — Senate negotiators reached a tentative deal to extend a tax credit for first-time home buyers, but its passage remains uncertain.

The agreement would extend the existing credit for first-time home buyers, worth up to $8,000, while offering a new credit of up to $6,500 for some existing homeowners, Senate aides said. The reduced credit would be available to all home buyers who have been in their current residence for a consecutive five-year period in the past eight years.

The new provisions are aimed at broadening availability of the credit beyond first-time buyers and giving the weakened real-estate market a bigger boost while preventing real-estate investors from benefiting. 

See remainder of story here

Look at me!  Look at me!! Sen. Joseph Lieberman in his never-ending quest to become relevant has again stabbed the Democrats in the back by vowing to filibuster any version of health care reform that contains a public option.  Will Democrats ever learn??  To provide context to Lieberman’s position it is important to point out that several of the largest insurance companies in the nation have their corporate headquarters in Lieberman’s state of Connecticut.  In addition, Lieberman has received more than $2.5 million dollars from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries running his state.  The Connecticut senator has received $65, 200 from Aetna alone for just the 2010 election cycle.  Did we also mention that 68 percent of Connecticut residents favor a public option and only 20 percent oppose a public plan?  Did we further mention that one poll indicates that 73 percent of INDEPENDENTS in Connecticut favor a public option.  Therefore, Lieberman will do one of two things in his desperate bid for attention.  He is either going to stick it to his constituents and cater to his base-the insurance industry- thereby ruining any chance of reelection.  Or, he will require Reid et al to satisfy his temper tantrum and narcissism by giving him a little attention after which he will do what is expected of him because he owes it to Democrats.  After all they did save him from irrelevancy following his last magnificent betrayal that was the McCain campaign.

The consumer cannot invoke the laws of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency through a civil right of action if a credit card company violates the rules????  The consumer must wait for the overworked Attorney Generals and the state’s (probably captured) Banking Commission  to bring a criminal complaint against the credit card company??  Seriously???  Thousands of consumer are protesting at the American Bankers Association in Chicago due to the arbitrary raising of interest rates and continued gouging of the consumer that the banking industry continues to engage in during this period preceding the full enactment of the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights.  Call your Congressman and tell them that you want the right to sue credit card companies for deceptive or unscrupulous business practices.

Apparently Congress has not been to Chicago lately.  It appears that corporate america has once again captured our legislative branch.  When asked why consumers do not have a private right of action in the bill Rep. Barney Frank responded that the Obama Administration didn’t ask for a private right of action.  A private right of action would definitely keeep the credit card industyry on its toes.  We will do more research on this and let you know the pluses and minuses to a private right of action for the consumer.  It is this writer’s opinion that Congress believes that we are paying so much attention to the health care rebate that we forgot about the huge blunder that put us in this recession in the first place.  So it has decided to try and pass “reform” in the way of a gutted consumer protection agency that has no real power or authority.

Not to mention that fact that according to the bill federal law can preempt stronger state banking laws if it can be shown to seriously interfere with national banking, i.e. not uniform. What???

Major financial institutions have been particularly concerned that the CFPA would create a floor, rather than a ceiling, for financial consumer protection standards, which potentially could subject them to fifty different regulatory schemes.  Representatives Mel Watt (D-NC) and Moore offered an amendment to grant preemptive effect to federal law if a state law would have a discriminatory effect on national banks.

Further, there are too many exemptions for certain industries that result in huge limitations on the CFPA powers.  Take a look at the list below:

1. The first amendment offered, by Representative Joe Donnelly (D-IN), exempted manufacturers of modular homes.
2. Representative Brad Miller’s (D-NC) amendment to exempt banks whose assets under management are less than $10 billion and credit unions whose assets are under $1.5 billion from significant parts of CFPA coverage.
3. Chairman Frank’s amendment to clarify that stores that offer store credit will not fall under the CFPA’s purview;
4. Representative Tom Price’s (R-GA) amendment to exempt employee pension benefit plans;
   Representative John Campbell (D-CA) and Bill Posey’s (R-FL) amendment to exempt automobile dealers, including those that finance automobile purchases by non-retail customers;
5. Representative Dennis Moore (D-KS) and Erik Paulsen’s (R-MN) amendment to exempt forms of insurance, including auto, life, and homeowners;
6. Representative Donnelly’s amendment to exempt manufacturers of modular homes.

CONGRESS we NEED REAL REFORM!

They all said that the public option is dead and buried.  Well it has recovered and been given a clean bill of health thanks to YOU.  Why it took Sen. Reid et all to see that a public option in the bill is the best way to go is beyond this writer.  For goodness sake, the majority of the American people want the public option, the public option brings down the cost of health care reform significantly according to the Congressional Budget Office, and it results in more Americans being covered.  Why is this so difficult???   Take a look at the comments from the misguided chattering class that includes several politicians:

Brad Blakeman:

The “public option” is dead, but birth has been given to the “co-op” by Senator Kent Conrad.

Cesar Conda:

The public option has flat-lined. As for the legislative outlook for health reform, the Senate will approve a bill without the public option. The current House version includes the public option, but I’m not so sure the Blue Dogs will want to walk the plank and vote on a provision that won’t become law.

Thomas J. Whalen:

The public option appears deader than the pennant chances of the Kansas City Royals. Nonprofit cooperatives will now take center stage in the health care debate and from the White House’s perspective, this may not be such a bad thing.

Sen. Kent Conrad:

In the Senate, the cooperative plan is the only one that has the prospect of getting 60 votes.

Conrad reverb:

“The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been,” he said. “So to continue to chase that rabbit I think is just a wasted effort.”

Conrad reverb reverb:

“It is very clear that in the United States Senate, the public option does not have the votes,” he said. “If we have to get to 60 votes, you cannot get there with public option. That’s why I was asked to come up with an alternative.”

Jane Hamsher:

Of course he’s not going to include a public option — as DC’s beltway class well knows, it’s been gone for a long time.

…

Rahm and the Baucus Caucus dealt the public option away months ago in order to keep stakeholders at the negotiating tables, and from filling the coffers of Republicans in 2010.

Newt Gingrich:

“I think the president has a real opportunity to fundamentally change the tone of his administration,” Gingrich tells NRO. But, he says, “I think it takes deeper change than simply yes or no on the public option. Frankly, if he does come out against a public option — given what the Left and the ACLU have said — it would be a very significant moment, and we should not understate how significant that would be.”

Nate Silver:

Is the public option really dead? Probably.

Perhaps the better question is whether the public option was ever really ‘alive’, meaning that it ever had enough votes to pass both the House and the Senate.

Karen Kerrigan:

It is dead. Never had a chance. Yet, debate over the public option will continue.

Steve Steckler:

Steve Steckler: The public option was like a cheap tattoo on the bride in an arranged marriage, betraying a questionable past (Medicare cost history) and an ominous future (budget-driven service constraints) for what was supposed to be love at first sight.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson:

President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a parade of House and Senate Democrats should get academy awards for their play act on the public heath care option. It’s as dead as a doornail.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

“It’s my opinion that the blue dogs are doing exactly what the white house wants them to do. The public option was a trial balloon. I can not stress how cynical and brutal the politics are. This is not about the public option. Anyone looking for the public option needs to look someplace else. It is not going to happen and anybody who says it is is in fantasy land.”

Alex Castellanos:

Well, the public option… it will still keep growing for a few days, but it’s dead. It’s not going to happen.

Gloria Borger:

I think it’s pretty dead, Campbell. I think it’s safe to say that right now it looks like it’s a goner.

Fmr. Sen. Tom Daschle:

It’s probably on life support. It’ll go to the Senate floor. There, they will have other votes. There may be other dynamics. There’s another amendment on a public option that probably has a lot more possibility, and that is the so-called Snow amendment, which is a trigger for a public option over the course of several years.

Bill O’Reilly:

The big federal insurance apparatus isn’t going to happen.

Krauthammer:

The wascally wabbit is dead. It doesn’t have a chance.

Dana Perino:

I think what this signaled this weekend is that the public option is dead. It’s not coming back.

Joe Klein:

Well, but the public plan was never going to be on the table.

Chris Matthews:

OK. Let’s take a look at the bottom line. We asked The Matthews Meter, 12 of our regulars, do the Democratic leaders who are pushing the public option now really deep down know that it’s dead, that it can’t be part of a solution that gets 60 votes, 218 in the House?

Sen. Lindsey Graham:

Appearing on FOX News Sunday this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared that a health reform bill in the House “is dead” and that “we should just throw it in the garbage can.”

Jim Cramer:

The public option in health care is dead. So go buy the health care stocks. But what else does President Obama have up his sleeve?

Chris Cillizza:

Snowe’s support in committee virtually ensures that the public option won’t wind up in the final bill as she is on the record opposing such a move and it’s hard to see the White House giving up her support after they won it once.

Bill Kristol:

The real “public option” is to scrap the current grandiose plans and to start over. There is no health care crisis, and doing no harm is far preferable to doing real damage to a good health care system.

David Brooks:

There’s, first of all, the people who still want the public option. I think they’ve unconsciously capitulated; they don’t realize it yet.

Lawrence O’Donnell:

I — Nancy Pelosi firmly believes that when the moment comes, she can gather her caucus together, tell them that she fought harder for the public option than Barack Obama did, than Harry Reid did, than any senator did. No one fought harder for it than Nancy Pelosi, and she is now telling her troops they’re going to have to go forward without it. That moment is going to come.

Steven Pearlstein:

If there is anything that’s been made clear over the last two weeks, it is that the public option is a political non-starter that threatens the entire reform effort. It’s time to let it go.

David Gergen:

Wolf, I think it’s now clear that a robust public option, the type supported and proposed by Senator Rockefeller today, is dead. They simply do not have the votes.

Now the Public Option must be opened to everyone not just to ten percent of Americans.  The only way to keep cost down and provide credible competition to the insurance industry the public option must be an option for all Americans.  As Sen. Wyden has said, all Americans want access to the public option.  Sen Wyden:

According to a quick analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, about 90 percent of all people seeking coverage would not be allowed to enter the insurance exchange offering the government-run choice. The only ones in the exchange would be those who currently lack coverage and a small subset of small business.

Sen. Ron Wyden has doubts about the scope of the public option plan announced Monday. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, immediately jumped on that number.

“I agree with Senator Reid that health reform should give Americans more options. Now, I want to work with him to ensure that all Americans can choose those options,” Wyden said. “The bottom line is that the public option can’t really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market, because private insurance companies aren’t going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can’t take their business elsewhere.

“Real reform means empowering Americans to choose insurance that works well for them and their family, while rejecting plans that don’t. Including a public option is a step in the right direction, now let’s remove the firewalls in this bill that prevent Americans from choosing it,” Wyden said in a statement.

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency moved through the House Financial Services Committee yesterday and will soon be on its way to the House floor.  Though the CFPA is a bit weaker it is still moving.  The Agency will be solely devoted to protection of consumers against the unscrupulous practices of financial institutions.  Republicans fought tooth an nail against passing the Act through the committee.  One of the GOP’s main arguments is that Te Federal Reserve already has the power to protect consumers and they are ready to use it now.  Well despite the fact that the Federal Reserve’s first priority is the health and success of the banks thus creating a huge conflict of interest for the regulatory agency.  But Democrats also argued the following:

“What did the prudential regulators do to protect consumers? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. They didn’t do a thing,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said, noting that the Fed has already had consumer protection powers since 1994 but that they went unused for 12 years. “I think enough has been said here in this committee about the markets. The markets. Always concerned about the markets. Well, you know what? Those markets caused trillions of dollars in losses to men and women who live on Main Street across this country.”

The paying out of huge bonuses in the last couple of days helped to move this along a bit more quickly.  Elizabeth Warren, the person who originated this idea a few years ago, has been a stalwart advocate and has been very instrumental in bringing the CFPA to fruition.

Those are the words of a congressional staffer regarding the onslaught of calls they are receiving in support of President Obama’s health care plan.  The sleeping giant is rested and reinvigorated.  During August we had a few very loud individuals appear at town halls in opposition to healthcare reform.  Thanks to Organizing for America Congress received over 200,000 calls regarding health care reform yesterday.  Well the silent majority is officially awake and on the war path regarding the public option and health care reform.  What is really heartening is that four out of five of the calls support a public option.  GOOD JOB!!!!

It appears that the continued obstructionism by the Republican Party is doing little to improve its brand.  A new ABC/Washington Post poll says that the amount of Americans identifying themselves as Republican is at a 26-year low. 

That cuts to the GOP’s basic challenges finding political footing: Only 20 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, the fewest in 26 years. Just 19 percent, similarly, trust the Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for the country’s future; even among Republicans themselves just four in 10 are confident in their own party. For comparison, 49 percent overall express this confidence in Obama, steady since August albeit well below its peak.

Pollster.com came to a similar conclusion.

In late January, a USA Today/Gallup poll recorded 27 percent of respondents saying they identified with the Republican Party, 36 percent with Democrats and 25 percent as unaffiliated or independent. Now in mid-October, the average data compiled from dozens of surveys over more than a year shows Republican ID at 22.5 percent, Democratic ID at 33.7 percent and Independent ID at 35 percent.

Two additional tidbits in the poll are the strong support for a public option and the increased support for the President. 

But 57 percent support one of the plan’s most contentious elements, a government-sponsored insurance option, and that soars to 76 percent if it’s limited to those who can’t get affordable private insurance.

……….

Still [Obama is] showing resilience, with a 57 percent job approval rating overall – not a significant difference from his 54 percent last month, but the first time since April it hasn’t declined

The majority of those polled said that they would rather see a public option than bipartisanship.

Indeed, Americans by 51-37 percent in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’d rather see a plan pass Congress without Republican support, if it includes a public option based on affordability, than with Republican backing but no such element.

The Senate held a hearing yesterday on “Prohibiting Price Fixing and Other Anticompetitive Conduct in the Health Insurance Industry.”  Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Chuck Schumer spearheaded the hearing.  The fact that this came so sonn after the insurance industry vowed to raise premium prices if health care reform is passed is merely a coincidence according to Sen. Schumer.  Yea right!  Insurance companies have been one upped similar to what happened to the credit card industry when it threatened to raise the price of credit in response to the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights.  It is good to see that Congress is getting a spine and letting these industries know who is boss.  The isurance industry has enjoyed this exemption for years for no other reason but because they paid for it.  The exemption has resulted in a near monopoly or insurance “cartel” among the top seven health insurers that has increased insurance premiums astromically.  Not to mention the enormous barriers to entry for any newly formed insurance companies.  The exemption is contained in the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945

Title  15, Chapter 20of the U.S. Code implements the McCarran Act. Here is its key provision:

No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance, or which imposes a fee or tax upon such business, unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance: Provided, That after June 30, 1948, the Act of July 2, 1890, as amended, known as the Sherman Act, and the Act of October 15, 1914, as amended, known as the Clayton Act, and the Act of September 26, 1914, known as the Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended [15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.], shall be applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by State Law.

The McCarren exemption is very expansive and makes the insurance industry immune from even the most insignificant regulation.  This would be HUGE if as Sen. Schumer has suggested it is included in the final health care reform bill.  The possibility that this exemption may be yanked is exactly what keeps the insurance industry up at night.  This is the same exemption that allows the insurance companis to collude, price fix, bid rigging, and market allocation in addition to allowing companies like AIG to operate outside the federal security laws.  There have been attempts to regulate BIG Insurance but because of the amount of money that the industry pours into Congress it has managed to drown any bill that would allow states or the federal government to regulate the industry.  As mentioned previously, THIS WOULD BE HUGE!!!

There has been a universal disdain and ridicule expressed for the PriceWaterHouseCoopers report commissioned by American Health Insurance Providers (AHIP)and super health insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni.  The report used focused on only four components of the bill and none of the reform components which lead to a blatant piece of health insurance industry propaganda.  The main stream media then regurgitated the report as legitimate news without citing the source of the information.  The four components used by PriceWaterhouse to reach its conclusions were as follows:

Insurance market reforms and consumer protections that would raise health insurance premiums for individuals and families if the reforms are not coupled with an effective coverage requirement.

An excise tax on employer-sponsored high value health plans.

Cuts in payment rates in public programs that could increase cost shifting to private sector businesses and consumers.

New taxes on health sector entities.

However, the newsworthy part of the PriceWaterhouse report and the revelation of the strongest argument for the public option made to date is that the insurance industry makes no bones about the fact that it will raise health insurance premiums even though the Baucus bill has no public option in it.  The health insurance industry makes it clear that the monopoly it holds on health insurance allows it to raise premium prices to the stratosphere if it feels like it.  This is exactly why we need a STRONG and ROBUST public option to reign in the control by the industry.

UPDATE: And now the insurance industry are frightening our most vulnerable…seniors

In a late-effort push to alter or torpedo health care reform, the major lobby for private insurers has made a multi-state, million-dollar ad purchase claiming that seniors will see their care cut under Democrat-crafted legislation.

“Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare advantage for more than their fair share?” the ad asks. “Congress is proposing over 100 billion in cuts to Medicare advantage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits

Insurance companies regularly discriminate against women.  Women are routinely denied coverage by insurance companies based on the mere fact that they are women.  In addition, when women are allowed to buy coverage they are charged 48% more than men for similar policies.  This is known as “gender rating” where insurance companies are allowed to charge women higher premiums based on their gender.

The SEIU sites nine ways that insurance companies discriminate against women:

1. Holding other factors constant, a 22-year-old woman can be charged up to one and a half times the premium of a 22-year-old man.
2. 1/3 of under-insured women deplete their savings to pay medical bills, versus 1/4 of all men.
3. 37% of women who have insurance reported having problems with their bills in the last year, versus only 29% of men
4. 8 states and the District of Columbiaallow insurers to deny coverage to victims of domestic violence because they have a pre-existing condition.
5. Many insurers also considerpregnancy and Cesarean sections a pre-existing condition
6. Even though white women have the highest incidence rate for breast cancer of any racial or ethnic group, black women have the highest breast cancer mortality rate, which is linked in part to lack of access to quality health care.
7. Hispanic women are twice as likely to have cervical cancer than white women and black women are twice as likely to die from the disease.
8. One out of three Black women has no health insurance.
9. In California, Hispanic women make up 50% of the uninsured female population.

Apparently the White House has an alternate Health Care plan drafted or nearly so that they plan to produce if there is no success getting a joint bill out of the House and the Senate.

The White House has been secretly drafting its own health care legislation that it may unveil at some point during the debate if officials believe it would help secure passage of a bill, according to sources familiar with the effort.

The White House plan

Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice. The President believes this option will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary. The President believes the public option must operate like any private insurance company – it must be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.

However,

The White House measure appears designed to entice moderate Democrats and perhaps even Republicans into supporting a health care overhaul if legislative efforts in Congress fail or if they move too far to the left. Sources said one possibility would be to invoke the measure if the Senate cannot rally 60 votes to break a filibuster. Another option may be to present details of what the White House wants during a conference between the House and the Senate.

Uhhh, no comprende??  The GOP is staunchly against this effort and has made clear that it will not vote for any health care bill that includes a public option so this writer fails to understand how the White House will make a bill with a public option GOP worthy?  Or, why it should.  The American people are not concerned about bipartisanship they are concerned with getting affordable health insurance.  How we get to that end or the process involved is of little importance to the average American.  We have 45,000 Americans dying each year as stated on the floor yesterday by Rep. Alan Grayson.  Rep. Grayson went on the floor and told the truth about what the GOP plans to do about the 45,000 future Americans who are at risk.  Basically the Congressman said the Republican plan is this:  Don’t get sick or if you do get sick, die quickly.  It was right on point.  Honestly, a few democratic congressman and senators need to channel Grayson’s “straight talk.”  The White House and the Democrats in the House and the Senate need to do what the people demand.  The American people are too invested in this outcome for the leaders in Washington to try and slide by some weak health insurance reform bill and not expect a significant backlash.  We are paying attention and we expect the right result.