RSS Feed MenuAfter months of negotiations, Senator Max Baucus has done the impossible: he has gotten Republicans and Democrats, fiscal hawks and liberals united in common cause.
The problem for the Chairman of the Senate’s Finance Committee is that, after 9 months of negotiations, the unity is in opposing his compromise bill.
Yesterday, Senator Baucus presented his bipartisan bill – sans the bipartisan support.
Actually, his problems are more profound. The Gang of Six seems to be down to a Gang of One. If Republicans, even moderate Republicans, are cool to his draft legislation, some Democrats are outwardly critical. Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have already publicly criticized it. Slate’s Timothy Noah asks: “if a finance committee chair introduces a bill and no one votes for it, does it exist?”
For months, Senator Baucus and President Obama have worked closely together. Indeed, they seem to have been engaged in a good-cop-bad-cop routine.
President Obama declares in August that he is abandoning efforts to achieve Republican support; Senator Baucus emphasizes throughout the summer the need for GOP votes on the final bill. President Obama favors a Medicare-style public option despite fierce opposition; Senator Baucus, winning praise from some GOP senators, likes the concept of a co-op. President Obama speaks of the moral imperative to pass health reform and discusses the experiences of his dying mother; Senator Baucus understands the importance of health reform but frets about the deficit.
That said, the White House and the Finance Committee have been in synch. OMB Director Peter Orszag, it’s been reported, has spent so much time in the Chairman’s office that he helps himself to the Coke Zeros in the Senator’s private fridge.
And they haven’t just been on the same page in terms of tactics. The core of Obamacare is embodied in the Baucus bill.
He would have a government committee decide on what’s an appropriate health plan for you and your family. There would be mandates and regulations and subsidies – and, yes, much spending.
Many senators see themselves as future presidents. Senator Baucus seems to think he’s the future health-insurance czar of America. As The Wall Street Journal editorializes:
The plan essentially rewrites all insurance contracts, including those offered by businesses to their workers. Benefits and premiums must be tailored to federal specifications. First-dollar coverage would be mandated for many services, and cost-sharing between businesses and employees would be sharply reduced… Nor would insurance be allowed to bear any relation to risk. Inevitably, costs would continue to climb.
Senator Baucus has fashioned a bill that sees Washington as the answer to a problem partly created and certainly worsened by Washington.
Some of the worst aspects of Obamacare have been watered down. The public plan has been dropped; the co-op, however, may simply be a stepping-stone. The bill scores at a fraction of the House draft legislation; it still comes in at $856 billion over ten years (and is only implemented for 6 of those years). President Obama has abandoned all efforts at tort reform; Senator Baucus’ bill expresses support for the concept.
It’s possible that, just a few months ago, the draft legislation released on Wednesday would have been the start of a great compromise.
It’s too late for that.
Thank goodness.
ltoro1 // Sep 18, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Let’s face it. Any “comprehensive” healthcare/insurance reform bill will be a total piece of crap. I would advise anyone who plans on living a long time to somehow accumulate enough savings to cover their own healthcare in their old age. Regardless of what gets signed into law, your healthcare (especially in your old age) will be your own problem.
Have a nice weekend.
sinz54 // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:21 pm
balconesfault:
A lot, perhaps the majority, of middle-class kids today finance their college education with loans.
But a loan doesn’t pay for education; it defrays the cost of education. The loan must still be paid off. With interest.
So these kids, or their parents, still have to end up paying perhaps $100,000 or more, though over a longer period than four years.
sinz54 // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:33 pm
lfc: you might recall a little problem with the savings & loans back in the 80’s when they were de-regulated.
FALSE.
I lived through that era as an adult taxpayer. (Did you?)
The die was cast for the S&Ls, when money market funds were invented in the 1970s. As interest rates soared to fight double-digit inflation, money-market funds could offer comparable yields (as high as 18% annualized), while passbook savings bank deposits could only offer the usual 5%, under Federal regulations. (The Federal Reserve’s Regulation Q limited interest on bank accounts. I’ll bet Regulation Q was before your time.) So depositors withdrew their savings from S&Ls and bought shares in money market funds instead–euphemistically called “disintermediation” of money from the S&Ls. Federal regulations were killing the S&Ls because they couldn’t compete with the money market funds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disintermediation
But S&Ls were getting squeezed on the other side too. They couldn’t loan out money at 20% (to offer a competitive yield to their depositors) because mortgage companies were offering loans cheaper.
So the S&Ls went bankrupt, one after the other.
What drove the S&Ls out of business, then, was wildly fluctuating inflation and interest rates, a product of Fed mismanagement of the economy.
Now let’s look at the 2000s, where we’ve found ourselves. You say that subprime lending by private institutions resulted in bad loans that couldn’t be repaid. Fine. But why did those companies have all that loose easy money to lend out at close to zero interest? Why weren’t they forced to charge a higher interest rate to high-risk applicants? Because in 2002, the Fed had lowered interest rates sharply to head off a recession in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attack.
For the last 20 years or so, the Fed has been pumping easy money into the economy to prop it up despite loss of America’s manufacturing base. We no longer build real things, and we have become a net importer of natural resources (that sure wasn’t true before 1950). So when a recession happens, instead of Federal fiscal policy reopening factories that were temporarily idled, the factories are gone for good and the Fed compensates by printing zillions of dollars.
And in each such cycle, they cause another bubble that bursts, causing another recession which they then “correct” with more loose easy money.
SFTor1 // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Don’t make me hungry, Churl. Best use of smørbrød in a sentence this week, that’s for damn sure.
SFTor1 // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:44 pm
And Churl, the health spend number for Norway is $4,763. High for Europe, but well below the U.S.
And that’s what really matters, isn’t it?
balconesfault // Sep 18, 2009 at 10:39 pm
And Churl, the health spend number for Norway is $4,763. High for Europe, but well below the U.S.
And as I’ve noted elsewhere – the US taxpayers are probably picking up a tab of about $6K a year in healthcare this moment … when you consider everything from Medicare to Medicaid to VA to DOD to Federal Employees to State Employees to City Employees to School Districts to $220 billion per year corporate healthcare tax subsidies.
We’re not getting universal coverage – while spending more in taxes per capita for healthcare. We aren’t very smart, are we?
johnmarzan // Sep 18, 2009 at 11:06 pm
What percent of subprime was Fannie and Freddie? About 28% The rest was private. What percent of the Fannie and Freddie loans were non-conforming to income and financial standards that are applicable for subprime? Zero. Nada. Zippo. But there were lots of non-conforming private mortgages.
ifc, Fannie and Freddie purchased 44% of the subprime securities in 2004!
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/10/20/paul-krugman-egregiously-wrong-on-fannie-and-freddie/
Churl // Sep 19, 2009 at 10:57 am
balconesfault, yes, we spend lots of money on health care, yes we could spend less and have good coverage. But much of the population is rightfully suspicious that Obamacare or Baucuscare (whatever exactly Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are cooking up) would not lower costs and would degrade the quality of care.
Hence the debates.
sinz54 // Sep 20, 2009 at 11:29 am
churl & balconesfault:
The problem is that Americans who have generous health care fear that with ObamaCare, they will end up with LESS so that others can have MORE.
As a left-winger, that’s precisely your moral code and your view of society: The well-off should sacrifice for the betterment of others. So you’re happy with that.
But in this case, the well-off (those with generous health plans) include just about every white-collar secretary in a giant corporation, and auto workers who accepted generous (and tax-free) health plans as compensation for their taking wage givebacks and wage cuts. Many average, working-class Americans have generous health insurance. And they worry what will happen to it under ObamaCare.
You liberals are mostly concerned with improving the care of the uninsured. The reason you’re not selling is that you are dismissive of the concerns of those who already have insurance: Will waiting times for procedures increase? Will they still have easy access to MRIs? If their employer dumps their private insurance and forces them into the public “option,” will they be less satisfied with the care they’ll be getting?
Until you stop your obsession with helping the disadvantaged and try selling your ideas to the vast majority of Americans who already have insurance, you’re not going to succeed.
SFTor1 // Sep 20, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Sinz says: “The problem is that Americans who have generous health care fear that with ObamaCare, they will end up with LESS so that others can have MORE.”
Sinz, I thought zero sum games were the stock in trade of Marxists.
What strikes me is that we are completely discounting American savvy and problem solving ability. We know that we spend too much, get too little in return, and suffer serious consequences from it as an economy and a nation.
I agree that the Obama Administration has failed its job of rallying the nation behind changing this situation, as opposed to for instance Kennedy succeeded with his moonshot challenge.
What is preventing Republicans for showing the ambition and the drive to set a goal to beat the world in health care costs and outcomes?
My analysis is that they cannot because they are hitching their policy suggestions to the interests of the health insurance industry.
Fundamental change is necessary, the Democrats are stumbling in bringing it into being, and the Republicans are undermining the very attempt.
Frustrating, to say the least.
mara123 // Sep 20, 2009 at 10:15 pm
The silent majority has been forgotten we will not be dictated to any longer by democrats or the gop, if that’s not understood both party’s have lost us. we want the contution honored an protected.This is one thing we are united in.
mara123 // Sep 20, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Its kind of funny really, obama has no idea who he is up against, if you go against the true American spirit you have no chance, i almost feel sorry for him, maybe if he wasn’t trying to wreck my country i would.
SFTor1 // Sep 20, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Mara, are you suggesting that health care reform is unconstitutional?
Does that mean that public fire and police departments, the FCC, the FTC, the FDA, Social Security, Medicare, and the federal air traffic control system needs to be disbanded too?
The American people have elected a President who ran on a platform of reforming health care, and who indicated that a public option was an element of it. Therefore the people have spoken.
Which American people are you talking about?