The Daschle Healthcare Plan: No Public Option, Taxes On Health Benefits, Private Insurance Mandate

-This is one healthcare plan the insurance industry can celebrate!-


Former Senate leaders offer compromise on healthcare
by Lisa Wangsness, Political Reporter
The Boston Globe
June 17, 2009


WASHINGTON -- Three former Senate majority leaders presented a bipartisan healthcare plan today, mapping out a potential path to a compromise as animosity over policy differences intensified on Capitol Hill.

Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole and joined Democrat Tom Daschle in a grand meeting room in Union Station today to unveil a plan that tackled, at least in broad terms, the biggest sticking points: whether to have a national public insurance plan (no, but states could create their own); how much it should cost (around $1.2 trillion over 10 years); whether to pay for it by taxing the health benefits people get through work (yes, but only minimally).

Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, who is serving as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East and was not present today, also helped develop the plan.

One of the most important compromises to emerge: The former majority leaders backed taxing a portion of the most expensive employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for their proposal. This may give new momentum to that idea, which President Obama has repeatedly discouraged and many liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill oppose.

Senator Max Baucus and other centrists have argued that taxing a portion of the most generous employer sponsored benefits for the highest income workers is one of the fairest and easiest ways to help pay for health care. But many liberal Democrats are afraid of levying new taxes during a recession and think it would hurt union workers who have given up salary increases to preserve generous benefits.

They found a middle ground by deciding to let a more heavily regulated private market try to work first, and by letting states choose to establish their own public insurance plans. The federal government would be allowed to step in if, over time, affordable insurance options did not emerge in every state.

"It's time to find consensus here," Daschle said. "We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail on disagreement on one single issue."

The leaders also agreed that individuals should be required to purchase insurance.

"I had a lot of trouble with mandates, just as Tom had trouble with the public plan," Dole said. "But if we can't compromise... how are we ever going to get a bill passed?"

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/06/washington_thre.html

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Daschle Folds on Federal Public Health Care
ABC News' Elizabeth Gorman reports
June 17, 2009

In an attempt at bipartisanship, three former majority leaders of the U.S. Senate, Tom Daschle, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole, offered their solution today to the biggest obstacle to achieving health care reform -- a public option.

"While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's time to find consensus here," Daschle said.

In a blow to President Obama and many of his Democratic allies in the health care fight, the plan recommends that there be no federal public option, but rather state or regional public-sponsored networks that would compete with private health plans, according to the summary released today by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The White House praised the Bipartisan Policy Center’s approach in a statement that continues to touch on only the broadest of goals.

"This group of extraordinarily experienced legislators agree with the President that health reform must be enacted this year because the status quo -- skyrocketing health care costs, rising premiums, swelling deficits – is unsustainable," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "With this report, they have demonstrated what can be achieved with bipartisan effort. The Bipartisan Policy Center has produced a significant report, and the White House applauds their efforts," added Gibbs.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/06/daschle-folds-on-federal-public-health-care-plan.html


THE OLD WHITE GUYS BI-PARTISAN GANG OF FOUR

It's not a done deal yet. Not even close.

They are working on behalf of the insurance and for profit medical industry.

decided yet, despite that sky falling.

that the sky is indeed falling (IMHO)

get a bill and will call it a marvelous reform.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Insurance-co-op-idea-gains-appeal-48200787.html



Insurance co-op idea gains appeal
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
06/16/09 8:05 PM EDT

The idea of establishing a health insurance cooperative appears to be gaining popularity in the Senate, as Democrats grapple with the staggering cost and mounting opposition to the creation of a government-run health insurance provider.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was “very impressed” after talking about such a plan with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who represents one of a half-dozen states that offer a health care cooperatives.

The cooperative idea — championed by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., — would have the government establish, but not run, an insurance company that operates as a nonprofit for its members’ benefit. Reid said he “would be satisfied” with such a plan if it would make private health insurance companies “honest.”

The majority leader said Reed will “push this real hard” as a member of the Senate health committee, although that panel has so far produced a bill with a government-run option.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is writing a separate health care reform bill, said he was weighing the idea.

“There are examples of a number of cooperatives that are working,” Baucus said. A report from the Congressional Budget Office says the cost of the leading health plan in the Senate would be about $1 trillion over 10 years, even before the price of a government-run health insurance company is factored in.




“Three of the nominated films this year have 26 men and one woman — ‘Slumdog‘ and ‘Milk,’ and ‘Frost/Nixon.’ You know, we accept it. It’s not unusual. But we would go nuts if three of the nominated films had 26 women and one man. It would be a very, very unusual thing. We’re still not telling everybody’s story in our country and that’s where we are.” -- Meryl Streep, 3/7/09

Accept their proposal for what it really is. A frontal attack on a public option.

It solves nothing. It represents just one more "suggestion" in the growing campaign to weaken and isolate public option advocates and to kill the public option. That's what the co-op b.s. is all about and that's what this latest "bi-partisan" proposal is all about.

You surely don't think they just did this for the hell of it, do you? They've been around and still have some influence in Congress and hope to confuse and fool the general public. They already are having some success in this regard. That's obvious from your conclusion that they merely are presenting a "suggestion, a different approach" to providing quality healthcare at all.

That is not their intention at all!

Don't be bamboozled by them!

These four old white guys speak and act as political whores for the insurance and healthcare industry, not us.

to Obama.

I get it now.

Pathetic.

This would be more cause for concern if Daschele was HHS Secretary; however, if he was HHS Secretary, odds are this plan would never have seen the light of day.

on the public option. caving to insurance industry is what is happening. and Gibbs is praising this crap. This in NOT reform!!

NOT!

a loser. Always has been, always will be.

They didn't, and actually helped to scuttle the Clinton plan.

If this is the kind of policy we would get if they are hellbent on bipartisanship, then fuck bipartisanship.

The President is wise not to do what Clinton did and keep making promises on healthcare that the Pre-Paid Congress has no intention of keeping. In the name of "reform" we will end up with something that is worse than nothing.

covered, and it will be affordable to many for the first time in awhile.

You don't know, I don't know. I just like the fact that so many people are involved in trying to find an (imperfect) answer.

I like the fact that we're finally at least trying again. Rethugs never seem to feel the need.

You may have bought into the framing of the problem as being not enough people "covered" by private insurance, but I don't agree. The system itself is not sustainable. People need affordable healthcare not insurance.

Any bi-partisan bill that has the support of a double digit number of Republicans isn't worth spit and if it comes to a vote should be voted down by true progressives and liberals in Congress.

Haven't you grown tired of hoping that the political masters might throw a few crumbs off the table your way since that's better than getting nothing!

That's a slave mentality. Progressives don't think like that.

And BULLSHIT on the slave mentality crap. I'm a Democrat, and if we can accomplish something that benefits a whole lot of people, that's progress.

You are just invested in the worst thinking.

Taxes on your health benefits, no public option and forced mandated private insurance coverage is acceptable to you?

I won't accept that.

Why should I?

I don't have a slave mentality.

although for the insurance industry it is, as they say, good work if you can get it.

It has to be available and accessible to everyone as a human right.

This is why I said I'm now afraid things are actually going to get worse.

he admitted that single payer universal health care was the best system in the world, EXCEPT, it wouldn't work for us. It's like he hadn't studied the problem and like he was ignorant bloviating talking points, he just wouldn't admit that the corporate system was the wrong way to go.

information. Recall that one reason so many were opposed to him as HHS was that he is owned by pharm and insurance industries.

not buying private insurance. he did not call it a public option but seems to have the same concept. I read his book (new one) last winter. He also called for Federal board to oversea the plan.

everyone. What he didn't take into consideration was that the system he liked, the FEHBP, was insuring people who were healthier and still working like postal workers. Insurance companies would not want to insure everyone. It's a bummer.

Universal Single-Payer Health Care now!!!

I'm currently uninsured.

I make less than $14,000 a year.

I have preexisting conditions.

So under this plan, I would be forced to buy insurance that I can't afford at outrageous costs from a private entity that won't cover my preexisting conditions?

Am I missing something here? How is this "affordable" health care? How is this "universal coverage"?

What am I missing??????????????/

And what will happen to me if I choose not to purchase this expensive private insurance that doesn't cover my preexisting conditions?

Nice.