Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk

Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk
By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

Steve McArthur is a management consultant. Read self-employed.

That means he has to buy his own insurance, a Blue Cross Blue Shield policy that costs him $584 a month and carries a $10,000 deductible.

On Tuesday morning, he listened for a long time as Missoulians discussed health care reform at a listening session at St. Patrick Hospital sponsored by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The hearing ranged broadly over the possibilities for reform, but what clearly resonated for McArthur was something Baucus' chief of staff, Jon Selib, said a couple of times.

Discussing why a single-payer system of health insurance wasn't viable, Selib made reference to the more than 150 million Americans who are covered by some sort of employer-provided health care.
“A lot of people like that,” Selib said.

When the time came for questions, McArthur stood up and asked a simple question. Looking across a standing-room-only crowd of about 275, he asked how many were happy with their employer-based health insurance.

Less than 10 people raised their hands.
more....
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/05/26/news/top/news01a.prt

:kick:

He is clearly not listening to the people.

Baucus is chair of the finance committee and as you probably know, all health care bills go through both finance and health, which is chaired by Kennedy.

Both Baucus and Kennedy are drafting bills, as are others on their respective committees, such as Wyden and Schumer.

Bernie Saunders has re-introduced the Wellstone Bill from the 90s that would allow and facilitate states to set up their own single payer systems.

Baucus has of late attempted to at least put the appearance of listening to the people. He met today for an hour with nationally known and respected single payer advocates.

And on Friday we are visiting all his offices in the state to rally for single payer. My bet is he will be far more gracious and much less dismissive of single payer.

The proof will be in whether he allows the Saunders bill to get a fair hearing and whether he will allow the congressional budget office to do comparative reports on costs and benefits between different bills.

If the past is any indication though, Baucus is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health care industrial complex.

Their is no one to remove him from the bill though because he undertook it on his own initiative. He has been working closely with SEIU (the union who appeared at the white house a number of times on health care issues and announcements with Obama) and i'm sure Baucus will be involved right up until they either pass something or it fails to pass or they pass something that has to be reconciled with the House.

the problem is that from the start the fix was in between Obama, Seiu, Baucus, and everyone else to throw single payer under the bus and to pass something that the insurance industry could live with.

We the people have just gotten our voice and we are saying we can't live with the insurance industry.

I had it in my head that he (Baucus) was specifically appointed to draft this legislation. Thanks for the information.
I can barely keep up with what the hell is going on up there.

Thanks again.

the something he wants to get done isn't necessarily what we want to get done.

He wants to pass a bill that will be (in his mind) both good for people and good for his big cash contributors in the health care industrial complex.

It's our job as citizen's to show him the error of his ways, and to point out that he can't simultaneously serve two masters at the same time. We need to force him to make a choice between the people of his state and the country, and his campaign contributors.

Families are REALLY screwn.

in a discussion of health care, but single-payer is off the table?
For "competition" to make sense shouldn't it be between doctors, hospitals etc. who actually do the job, not insurance companies whose only functional purpose is spreading the risk (which they are not doing - they are cherry picking, limiting networks, pre-existing conditions and in effect rationing). They are reaping huge profits for screwing up a simple non-technical job decription.