Pelosi: House Dems Can Support Obama Healthcare Proposal

[flpoljunkie]

Pelosi: House Dems can support Obama healthcare proposal

By Walter Alarkon - 02/23/10 04:51 PM ET

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said House Democrats can support the major parts of the healthcare proposal released by the White House.

“We’re very pleased with what the president put up on the Internet,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday at a news conference.

Pelosi also didn’t object to the lack of a public insurance plan in Obama’s bill. Liberals in the House have pled for Obama to support the public option, and had included it in their bill as a way to ensure competition with private insurance and to drive down healthcare costs.

“There are other ways to do that,” Pelosi said. “We intend to do that in the bill. seems to me the best way to us, but that will depend on what the Senate can pass on the Senate side.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/83241-pelosi-house-dems-can-support-obama-healthcare-proposal

[polpilot]

1. We did it!!! Yes we did!!!

We gave it all away!!

[brand404]

13. Bingo

[mzmolly]

17. ... to people

who are in need of health insurance!

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

4. Absurd

Not only was the Senate bill far better than Baucus', the President's bill now includes rate regulation that didn't exist in either the House or Senate bill:

The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, comprised of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market.

link

Here are some other proposals that would never have been in the Baucus bill.

In fact, the current bill is much better than either the House bill or Senate bill, but there is always room to complain.

[flyarm]

6. This bill is shit..no other word for it! eom

[ChicagoSuz219]

7. Thanks for pointing this out! n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

12. While not perfect, the bill also closes the donut hole. I don't like the mandate, but

this is a decent bill. What I think will happen is pure strategy. If we can get Senate Dems to sign on to the public option and merge it with some version of Obama's plan with the House version, we got ourselves a pretty decent bill.

I have hope that all is not lost.

[IndianaGreen]

5. BOHICA

No wonder the American people think Washington is broken!

[Cha]

8. So many uninformed interneters jerking off their cheap

shots.

[Moochy]

25. Damned Internet!!!!1111

[flyarm]

3. Hey Nanc..kiss the congress goodbye in Nov..this is one dem who will sit it out!!

if you sit it out on the PO..I will sit out the election In Nov..count on that!!

That's my option..my other option..the checkbook stays in the drawer.

For a long time to come!!

My final options..I stay home on 2012..

Oh and Nanc..I know a shit load of other dems who feel exactly the same!!

Bye Bye Nancy!! Its the last sell out I am willing to take!

[Cha]

9. Good..sit on your friggin ass.

[bvar22]

18. Good luck selling this steaming pile to the American People.

LESS than 35% of ALL Americans support Mandates without a Public Option.

"When given the choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the voters will choose the Republican every time." ---Harry Truman

QED Massachusetts

:hi:

[Cha]

21. Another interneter who thinks they know it all.

[flyarm]

23. and what are you?? what ??you know more than the 70%+ majority of American people that want a PO?

what would you call yourself but an "internetter" who thinks she knows more than the American majority of people?

well by the looks of all the threads you are on with a choice "very few"..you are sorely in the minority here at DU! And among the majority of Americans, you are pathetically in the small minority wanting this pile of horse crap!

Just see how that works out in Nov when a vast majority of dems sit home..after all..it is about the only option we have left..since this senate , and president have crapped all over us!..Us.. being the Majority of citizens in this nation that pay their salaries and know damn well we are being sold out..in the most profound way..with our health ..and care!

As for "Intenetter"..Over the years I have seen many like you..and that type burns out trying to sell your brand of horsecrap.


Or eventually ..you don't get paid...........:shrug: :shrug: :nuke:

[flyarm]

22. when the congress and senate sit on their asses when it comes to the American people..

they make the choice first..it was their move...and they punted on their job and they chose not to represent the American people ..but to save the asses of Big Pharma and the insurance boys..it is that simple..they chose not to support the American people..now they will see the consequences.

How hard is it for them to see that close to 80% of Americans want PO?

well it will be just as hard for me to vote for them! and I am sure millions and millions of the 80% will have to reflect and will come to the same conclusions..

It is simple really..very simple..fuck me once, shame on you. Fuck me twice..well you know the rest..

And all your condescension and propaganda will not fool anyone! It hasn't so far!

[emilyg]

19. +100

[quiet.american]

10. If you care about the goals of the public option, rather than the words "public option," pls. read:

I posted this elsewhere, but I'd like to post this in this thread, too.

Jacob Hacker, the Yale prof. considered to be "the father of the public option," came out in Dec. 2009 in support of the Senate bill, *before* Obama's proposals, and even though the Senate bill did not contain his idea for a public option. He laid out several fixes that would bring the Senate bill closer to the objectives of the public option and Obama seems to have included every single one of them in his proposal. Hacker also stated something that caught my attention - that the public option was meant as a means to an end. If you're interested in why Pelosi might see the light at the end of the tunnel in the proposals Obama posted, please take a moment before you flame me, to read this whole article; excerpts:

Why I Still Believe In This Bill
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/why-i-still-believe-bill

The public option was always a means to an end: real competition for insurers, an alternative for consumers to existing private plans that does not deny needed care or shift risks onto the vulnerable, the ability to provide affordable coverage over time. I thought it was the best means within our political grasp. It lay just beyond that grasp. Yet its demise--in this round--does not diminish the immediate necessity of those larger aims. And even without the public option, the bill that Congress passes and the President signs could move us substantially toward those goals.

....To be sure, the bill also contains a requirement on individuals to have coverage, which has become the main target of criticism from the left. Without the public option, this mandate amounts to forcing people to buy private insurance without creating an affordable public alternative with which insurers must compete.

But the correct response to this critique is to make the requirement less necessary by providing greater assistance with the cost of premiums and by facilitating enrollment in the exchange--in other words, by making coverage more attractive and easier to obtain.

The lack of a public option also makes even more imperative tough requirements on insurers to make them live up to their stated commitment to change their business model and slow the spiraling cost of coverage. The most important way to do this is to move away from the Senate bill’s state exchanges and toward a national exchange such as that contained in the House bill. The federal government needs to be directly involved in implementing and enforcing strong national regulations of insurers and creating the new exchange. Otherwise, the effort for reform might fail at the hands of hostile governors.

The federal government is the only entity big enough and powerful enough to ensure a highly consolidated private insurance industry follows the law. It can and must demand transparency and obedience to the new rules. Insurers must open their books, and subject their rates, administrative costs, and profits to federal review. These new rules must apply to all plans, not just those within the exchange. And states should have authority not only to enforce these rules, but to innovate beyond them as well.

More at the link:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/why-i-still-believe-bill

[freddie mertz]

11. Nancy got pressured. This is a big change from yesterday. nt.

[amborin]

14. Obama opposes the PO b/c it's the main thing that will hold down costs (&profits)

[Bodhi BloodWave]

16. Got any actuall proof of that? n/t

[amborin]

20. it's basic bonehead economics 1-A, but it's also been analyzed

ad nauseum

only competition from an independent entity will force insurers to hold down prices

[Bodhi BloodWave]

24. So no proof to point to then, expected as much n/t

[brand404]

15. Being a non-wealthy American Citizen really SUCKS!

America on the surface appears free but it clearly is not....