Baucus cuts $600 billion in subsidies from health care bill

[Dominus Atheos]

And then pats himself on the back

Why Is Max Baucus Smiling? You'll Never Guess!


It's good that I'm not a reporter anymore. I had this unfortunate habit of telling politicians what I thought of their policies (I once asked one, "How do you look at yourself in the mirror?"), and we know that sort of behavior just wouldn't help me get ahead in the Beltway media bubble.

Instead, I get to tell the world what I think of Max Baucus: that he's an amoral ass, someone who's more interested in successful horse-trading over a bill than actually achieving the goal of insuring people who genuinely need help:

A group of key Senate negotiators has found a way to further reduce the price tag of the health care reform bill, bringing it in line with a $1 trillion target and moving the Senate Finance Committee closer to a deal, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Thursday.



"We have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill fully paid for," Baucus said.

But the bipartisan group of Senate negotiators issued a statement saying they were moving ahead. It was meant to signal that, despite the slow going and the many issues that have yet to be resolved, they intend to reach a compromise.

"As we have been for the last several weeks, we are committed to continuing our work toward a bipartisan bill that will lower costs and ensure quality, affordable care for every American," the group said.

Well, no. Not every American. But really, they figured out something that's so cool, you won't believe it!

[...] The cost became the top concern of Finance Committee senators after they received an estimate last week from the Congressional Budget Office claiming that an early version of the bill would top $1.6 trillion, or $600 billion more than expected.

The senators said they found $400 billion in savings earlier this week, largely by reducing the amount of subsidies for low-income individuals to buy insurance.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said they found much of the additional $200 billion in savings by further adjusting the level of subsidies. It is unclear, however, whether they would reduce the amount of each subsidy or lower the income level at which people become eligible.

Now, how clever is that? The way to solve the problem is to make sure that the poorest Americans have to cough up more money. In other words, the law will require them to be insured - but they won't be able to afford it. Problem solved!

"It is now a process of determining where does the support lie for which of these options that are chosen," Conrad said. "This is very substantial movement, very significant progress and very encouraging. Everybody who heard these numbers this morning had smiles on their faces, I can tell you that."

Must. Go. Bang. Head. On. Wall...

This can't even be called a clusterfuck anymore. The Stimulus was a clusterfuck, but at least that didn't go out of it's way to make the problem worse. Making it a law that everyone must have health care but not providing any help to people who can't afford it will definitely make the problem worse.

[Gandalf]

Making it a law that everyone must have health care but not providing any help to people who can't afford it will definitely make the problem worse.

How the hell does that work?

If you can't afford healthcare are you fined, imprisoned, or what?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Making it a law that everyone must have health care but not providing any help to people who can't afford it will definitely make the problem worse.

How the hell does that work?

If you can't afford healthcare are you fined, imprisoned, or what?

Fined.

[Questor]

Fined.

At least tell me that the fine is means adjusted.

Please.

[Rogue 9]

Making it a law that everyone must have health care but not providing any help to people who can't afford it will definitely make the problem worse.

How the hell does that work?

I would presume the same way being required to have liability insurance for one's car works; mainly through fines. There's also license suspension and vehicle impoundment, but these obviously aren't viable means of enforcing health insurance coverage.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Fined.

At least tell me that the fine is means adjusted.

Please.

It'll be assessed against your income tax, for example someone below the poverty line would lose some portion of their income tax rebate check IIRC.

This portion may however not be included in the final bill, especially when the House of Representatives sees the lack of subsidies for the poor. And if a government option is included then we'll still vaguely get something positive out of it. Remember that House/Senate negotiations will still be requied before a final bill can be adopted, though I grant it has me queasy.

[Gandalf]

I would presume the same way being required to have liability insurance for one's car works; mainly through fines. There's also license suspension and vehicle impoundment, but these obviously aren't viable means of enforcing health insurance coverage.

You can get around those fines by simply not having a car, impractical as that is in the US.

Could poorer people somehow get out of these fines?

[Pablo Sanchez]

You can get around those fines by simply not having a car, impractical as that is in the US.

The health care equivalent to not owning a car would be killing yourself, wouldn't it?

Could poorer people somehow get out of these fines?

People who are totally indigent will probably continue to be covered by medicaid, while the working poor will be the ones who money from that reduced subsidy fund to buy their coverage, so the poor will be okay. The people who are actually in danger because of this retarded bullshit are the formerly prosperous lower middle class, who will have too much income to qualify for subsidies but too little to buy effective coverage. Because of Baucus's brain-dead negotiations this doughnut hole will probably be very large, since they'll have to reduce the income ceiling. As I opined in another thread, the result might be the proliferation of cheap health insurance plans which fulfill the coverage requirement but actually cover very little in the way of health care costs.

EDIT:
It's actually fascinating how terrible a job the Senate is doing on this. It's as if Democrats and Republicans sat down together and asked eachother, "Okay, what is the absolute worst way we can do this?" It's a total tinfoil conspiracy theory, but if it turned out that they were being paid by the health care industry to intentionally fumble the process in the hopes of discrediting the very idea of universal health care, I have to say I wouldn't be excessively surprised. Clearly it's going to be up to the House and the reconciliation process to fix this mess, because the Senate has no intention of passing anything that resembles a serious bill on this issue.

[Questor]

I actually think Snowe's proposal is hilarious. She proposes to set a time by which if the costs haven't come down on private insurance, the public option happens.

This is funny because I can't see anyone agreeing to it. The healthcare industry would hate it because it would be just as bad for them as public option, and the left would hate it because it doesn't work fast enough. The only winner would be Snowe, who gets to go a little farther without having to break with her party.

[Lord MJ]

Just wondering how they are going to enforce a fine for the many millions that are not going to be able to afford to buy health insurance...

Actually after thinking about it this is the approach that Obama said he would take during the election. He said that he finds merit in a single payer system but going from now state to single payer system is simply not realistic. So this public option is somewhere in between.

[Surlethe]

It's really sad that our political system is so fucking broken that it can't implement a simple halfway step toward a social policy that the rest of the civilized world implemented an entire century ago. What's the difference in our politicians now and theirs then? And why can't the Democrats make use of their majority to actually, you know, competently execute their agenda? Are they still so piss-scared of the Big Bad Republicans that they don't realize they've curbstomped them in two consecutive elections for a reason?

[Broomstick]

One problem is that even a lot of Democrats/"liberals" have bought into the health care propaganda that's been spewed for the last decade or so.

[Darth Wong]

It's a total tinfoil conspiracy theory, but if it turned out that they were being paid by the health care industry to intentionally fumble the process in the hopes of discrediting the very idea of universal health care, I have to say I wouldn't be excessively surprised.

Who needs under-the-table payments? Health insurance companies trade on the major stock exchanges. How many of these guys have direct or indirect investments in these corporations? Do you know what would happen to the stock prices of these enormously profitable operations if the government were to clamp down on their behaviour or offer public competition?

Frankly, I think all investments of politicians should be scrutinized for conflicts of interest. If some guy is heavily invested into a health insurance company and he votes in such a manner as to ensure that company's profitability, that's a pretty obvious conflict of interest.

[Johonebesus]

It's really sad that our political system is so fucking broken that it can't implement a simple halfway step toward a social policy that the rest of the civilized world implemented an entire century ago. What's the difference in our politicians now and theirs then? And why can't the Democrats make use of their majority to actually, you know, competently execute their agenda? Are they still so piss-scared of the Big Bad Republicans that they don't realize they've curbstomped them in two consecutive elections for a reason?

The problem is that universal healthcare is not the Democrats' agenda. Some of them want it, yes, but enough of the leadership is payed by the healthcare industry that the party as a whole is opposed to public medicine. Single Payer was taken off the table by the Senate leader. The current Democratic party leadership isn't going to allow universal healthcare, period.

[Darth Wong]

The bottom line here is that Wall Street runs the country. All of the major policies and decisions of the government are dictated by what will be best for Wall Street investors, and that includes investors in the health extortion, er- I mean health insurance business.

[D.Turtle]

The problem is quite simple: All those Senators and Representatives have to raise money for their reelection campaign. Health Insurance companies, Banks, and other big corporations can have massive influence by giving a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands for those campaigns. Nate Silver looked at the influence those contributions had in the Health Care debate:

Lobbying contributions appear to have the largest marginal impact on middle-of-the-road Democrats. Liberal Democrats are likely to hold firm to the public option unless they receive a lot of remuneration from health care PACs. Conservative Democrats may not support the public option in the first place for ideological reasons, although money can certainly push them more firmly against it. But the impact on mainline Democrats appears to be quite large: if a mainline Democrat has received $60,000 from insurance PACs over the past six years, his likelihood of supporting the public option is cut roughly in half from 80 percent to 40 percent.

$60,000 to halve the likelihood of supporting the Public Option - that's fucking pathetic.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's nice to know that a Senator can still be bought with a small enough sum as can be fit into a black attache case!

[Pablo Sanchez]

It's really sad that our political system is so fucking broken that it can't implement a simple halfway step toward a social policy that the rest of the civilized world implemented an entire century ago.

Eh, more like 60 years. Limited socialized health care programs have been around for a while, but it was only after WWII that universal coverage became the norm. Arguably this became the case mostly because of the widespread devastation that Europe suffered; systems that existed prior to WWII were damaged and incapable of coping with the postwar doldrums, which not only meant that the government had to step in but also meant that there was no effective opposition from within the industry. In America we came out of WWII smelling like roses and all of our bad bets have basically come to head within the past 15 years or so. So we're dealing with these problems now, instead of in 1946, and since we have no experience with them, we're fucking it up. There's are also systemic differences, like Americans' childish belief in rugged individualism, the lack of a serious left-wing party, the complete incapacity of the fourth estate to do its fucking job, etc. etc. etc.

What's the difference in our politicians now and theirs then? And why can't the Democrats make use of their majority to actually, you know, competently execute their agenda? Are they still so piss-scared of the Big Bad Republicans that they don't realize they've curbstomped them in two consecutive elections for a reason?

The problem is that the Democratic party is not actually a left-wing party by any reasonable standard. They are staunchly pro-business liberals and have been so since at least the Clinton administration, if not the Reagan administration. It is only because the other pole of the American political system is made up of schizoid anarcho-capitalist hyper-religious moralists that we pretend that the Democrats are a left-wing party. I would say that the Democratic Party is actually the last gasp of a political grouping that has become an also-ran in the rest of the industrialized world, that being the Liberal Democratic tradition.

In America we pretty much have a status quo party and a rabidly reactionary party, and if you're socialist or even just progressive, you're excluded from the discussion. There were some admissions from congressional progressives that I've read quoted in the blogosphere, admitting that by staying mum they've let the rightists fuck up the polarity of American politics. That is, since progressives agreed not to press their case and thus robbed the political spectrum of its left pole, the "center" position of American politics is midway between the actual center and the most reactionary position. Thus, nobody even talks about single-payer, so the centrist position of a hybrid health care system with a robust public option takes the "left" against the reactionary position of "EVERYTHING IS FINE SO SHUT UP".

[Chris OFarrell]

There was actually a West Wing episode on tonight I was half watching (Hubbert Peek of all titles, very SDN).

And there was a similar sort of argument going on about the Democrats being spineless.

GLEESON
This administration's environmental
record is an embarrassment to its
party and a betrayal of its
supporters. Mordant enough for you?

JOSH
"Betrayal, embarrassment," it's
that kind of temperate rhetoric
that so endears the green movement
to the electorate.

LACKEY
You rolled over.

JOSH
We did the arithmetic! Any increase
in CAFE standards wasn't going to
happen.

LACKEY
Josh, you rolled over.

AUREN
An eight-year-old can count heads.
This is supposed to be about
leadership.

JOSH
Leaders avoid losing battles. You
live to fight another day.

LACKEY
You're missing the point, Josh.
Nobody thought we were going to win
this one. But you've made it easy
for them.

AUREN
Seat belts, air bags, the first
fuel economy standards--the auto
industry had to be dragged kicking
and screaming into all of them.

GLEESON
They didn't go out of business.
They figured it out.

LACKEY
The White House doesn't lead on
fuel mileage, opponents get to cast
their vote at no cost.

AUREN
We don't just lose a vote, we lose
out on a national debate.

LACKEY
Making it that much harder to win
the next vote.

JOSH
This isn't a poli-sci seminar! We
didn't have the votes! [stands]
Thank you all for your time.
[leaves]

It was about car millage standards, but it shows more or less the same 'we can't afford to fight!' attitude that is slowly destroying the US democratic party. I mean they NEED someone in the House/Senate who is willing to stand up and scream 'YOU WAN'T A FIGHT BITCH? BRING IT ON!'

Just DARE them to try and filibusterer something like a REAL Universal Health Care bill (not an abortion 'lets lay down and let the Republicans turn it into a mockery bill). If they do, blast them from every TV news show, radio show, newspaper page, make them a complete mockery. FIGHT them for Gods sake. I am really starting to get SICK and TIRED of the spineless BS.
Where the frack is Howard Dean when you need him?

[FireNexus]

Where the frack is Howard Dean when you need him?

Quietly tucked under the rug for being too liberal?

At least there's finally some talk now of the lack of a progressive party. With any luck, this whole republican clusterfuck will result in the "two-party" system moving to the Democrats on the right and a new party on the left. I hope one day I can stop hearing the word "Republican" in this country.b

[Darth Wong]

There were some admissions from congressional progressives that I've read quoted in the blogosphere, admitting that by staying mum they've let the rightists fuck up the polarity of American politics. That is, since progressives agreed not to press their case and thus robbed the political spectrum of its left pole, the "center" position of American politics is midway between the actual center and the most reactionary position. Thus, nobody even talks about single-payer, so the centrist position of a hybrid health care system with a robust public option takes the "left" against the reactionary position of "EVERYTHING IS FINE SO SHUT UP".

Is it fair to blame this on politicians, as opposed to the media and/or the American public itself? Ever since the 1980s, I've seen the same problem in the media and in any discussion with typical Americans themselves. It's like a splash of cold water to the face for them when you come at them with any kind of genuine leftist ideas; you can tell they've never heard a real human being espouse them before, as opposed to a preposterous media stereotype.

[18-Till-I-Die]

There was actually a West Wing episode on tonight I was half watching (Hubbert Peek of all titles, very SDN).

And there was a similar sort of argument going on about the Democrats being spineless.

It was about car millage standards, but it shows more or less the same 'we can't afford to fight!' attitude that is slowly destroying the US democratic party. I mean they NEED someone in the House/Senate who is willing to stand up and scream 'YOU WAN'T A FIGHT BITCH? BRING IT ON!'

Just DARE them to try and filibusterer something like a REAL Universal Health Care bill (not an abortion 'lets lay down and let the Republicans turn it into a mockery bill). If they do, blast them from every TV news show, radio show, newspaper page, make them a complete mockery. FIGHT them for Gods sake. I am really starting to get SICK and TIRED of the spineless BS.
Where the frack is Howard Dean when you need him?

I was saying this WAAAAY back during the election and everone said I was "too partisan" and "LOLZ this isn't bloodsport!"

The Democrats are completely useless, any one who is even the slightest bit objective will admit that. None of them...not even Dean...have or had the courage to fight. To stand up and say what they really mean. Our entire political spectrum has become so openly dishonest and openly disingenuous that it's really sickening.

The "liberal" part refuses to stand up for their alleged beliefs. Instead they're terrified of losing...what? Losing middle America? Some retards out in the suburbs? Who gives a fuck about them, what about the other eleventy billion people in the God damned country? What about ME, what about the liberals who supported you for fucking years, hoping against hope someday you'd get a grip? I simply cannot grasp what these people are afraid of losing. They think they can't afford to fight but they can afford to...look like pussies who can't defend themselves? What kind of strength is that? Who cares about someone too cowardly to protect his own, and just lets the enemy crush them without reason?

What, I ask you, what kind of leader is that?

We, and by we I mean liberals and socialists like me, need someone to stand up for us. I even mention my political standing and I get dirty looks, this country, even on the "left", is far too rightist and it's pathetic. The Democrats, sucky as they are, are the only "liberals" in the country and I pray to God they get some balls soon.

Said it before, and I'll repeat it...

We need THIS!

Not THIS!

[Simplicius]

18, you speak as though the Democrats were an ideologically liberal party that has lost its way, when I am not at all certain that this is the case. Liberalism in the US only became ascendant in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression, and persisted through the post-war period at least in part as a response to the nascent "threat" of a socialist political movement in the US. A primary argument to preserve and expand the New Deal through the '50s and '60s was to preempt domestic socialism by granting some of the fruits of a socialist society within the framework of American democracy - in other words, in many respects liberalism was a concession rather than a movement. Why would you expect it to persevere, especially when Republican propagandizing finally undermined the voting public's confidence in the liberal program? Do you seriously think the Democrats in the 1980s onward would carry on with a program to combat a social movement that was now completely dead, when it appeared that they would gain more votes by appealing to the new current flowing through American society?

Fact is, if you are a committed leftist or even a committed liberal, the Democrats are not your party. They are merely the least-worst of two bad options. Welcome to US politics.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yes, you're right of course. As sad and pathetic as it is there is really no legit Liberal party (forget even a Socialist party...) in this country.

Sometimes, I just wish against all logic the Dems would act like it though.

[D.Turtle]

Well, the Democratic Party IS changing - moving farther to the left. This is mainly through blogs (like DailyKos and so on), who ARE holding the Democrats feet to the fire. They ARE getting progressives elected. They ARE holding Senators and Representatives responsible. And they ARE primarying moderate/centrist Democrats. The thing is, it takes a while to replace decades old power structures. If you look at the newcomers in the Senate and the House, they are mostly far to the left of the people they replaced. The problem is that the people at the top are mostly moderate/centrist Democrats.

In fact, looking at the Health Care debate, the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, and the Asian Pacific American Caucus in the House have come out and said that they would vote against any Health Care bill that did not include a strong public option - and they have enough votes to make this a deal breaker. Granted, this is the first time they have done that, but it IS progress.

Things are more dicey in the Senate. What public option proponents are now trying to do is concentrate on getting 50 votes for a bill including a public option. Once they have that, they only have to get the other democrats to vote for closure. In effect, once they have the 50 votes needed to pass the bill, they only have to stop "moderate" Democrats from filibustering the bill. Once closure has been voted on, those moderates could still vote against the bill.