It looks as if the Senate Finance Committee will report out a health care bill next week, probably on a 13-10 party line vote. That committee chair Max Baucus has bent over far enough to get the vote of Republican member Olympia Snowe (ME) seems doubtful, but he does seem to have rounded up the support of conservative Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
The bill, which does not include a public option, requires all Americans to have health insurance and bars insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on preexisting conditions. It appears to place no burden on insurance companies to control costs by reducing overhead. All in all, a small price to pay for the addition of 40,000,000 new customers.
The bill as it is likely to be reported out probably cannot pass the House of Representatives. But, it will be amendable on the Senate floor and is subject to negotiation in a joint committee. Hopefully, additional consumer protections will satisfy liberals, not to mention some semblance of a public option. Still, what we will wind up with will be a long way from single payer; as it stands, the eventual bill is likely to make no happier than the insurance companies. If there is an eventual bill...
The New Orleans City Council has doubled the salary of its members. Clifton of Cliff's Crib doesn't necessarily object, but he does think that it's now time for them to put up or shut up...
Don't miss Foxessa's account of the NOLA book tour supporting Ned Sublette's The Year Before The Flood. This one is next on Citizen K.'s reading list. If it's half of Sublette's brilliant The World That Made New Orleans, Flood will be one of the indispensable books of 2009...
Posts
4 comments:
Great post as always, K! I really wonder if we will actually see health care improvement any time soon or will whatever is offered just continued to get watered down until we're no better off than we were before and the insurance companies continue to thrive regardless?????
Have a great weekend!
Sylvia
Thanks! If I had to bet, it would be on a watered down bill with some nod to a public option. But, maybe that will turn out to be a foot in the door. Who knows?
The opinion I seem to be hearing most from pundits and from polls is that once the Senate version of the health care bill gets out of committee and out on the floor, the public option will be added and will pass fairly comclusively. It's for sure that every public opinion poll I've seen says Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of the public option. Makes me wonder if any of the naysayers in both houses will be able to keep their seats in the next election cycle.
One of my favorite songs by Airplane, who I think are perhaps the quintessential American rockband. Pity it's lipsync though!
Post a Comment