Elections are about choices between the two alternatives. Sure I wish we have a viable multi-party system but for the most part we have two parties to choose from in elections. That’s why when I see people say they will sit on their hands or vote for third parties that can never win they are ignoring reality because that’s almost as good as voting Republican.
Well the Republicans released their healthcare “plan” which is akin to the short TARP plan Paulson released and about as useless.
Following are some highlights of McCainCare if he were president.
- No mandates of any kind including not mandating private insurance to cover people like me with preexisting conditions.
- No tax credits for the working or middle classes to help pay for insurance premiums.
- No legislation to force private insurance to pay claims for sick people or end the practice of recision.
- No talk of expanding Medicaid to the working poor or adding any government plan.
- No federal plan really at all. It will be up to the states to make 50 individual healthcare insurance systems.
- No taxes on the rich or businesses but remember McCain wanted to tax middle class healthcare benifits.
Of course since Republicans have to check off their ideological member cards, the plan includes tort reform which we have already seen on a state wide basis does nothing to lower healthcare costs. The costs associated with litigation are directly related to the insanely high malpractice insurance rates doctors must pay. But the fact is these rates are not high because of jury rewards, they are high because malpractice insurance is one of the most profitable insurance sectors. In essence insurance companies rake in huge premiums and pay relatively little in benefits.
The only thing the plan does that’s positve is a watered down version of the House bill that enables private insuance to offer plans across state lines. But it comes no where near the House bill that will expressly create insurance exchanges in all states that have to live up to set guidelines to offer everyone policies (including people with preexisting conditions), pay out at least 85% of premiums on claims, end the practice of recisions, create a system where health insurance is mobile, expanding Medicaid to cover more working poor, closing the Medicare drug plan doughnut hole, offering tax credits etc. In essence the McCainCare offers no better healthcare security or lowers costs any better than the system we have today.
There’s no difference between the parties, riiiiiiiight.
Did i just hear Keith Olbermann correctly? Did he just say in his “Worst Persons” segment that the famous Republican disruptor, Joe Wilson, had voted against funding for the development of the H1N1 vaccine, and now MRS Wilson has H1N1??
That would be too ironic. Good thing Mrs. W. has congressional quality health insurance, at least.
Should I say…God works in mysterious ways…or how about…Karma, what goes around, comes around…or, couldn’t happen to a better guy (though I do not wish anyone ill health, the Karma thing, you know)…:}
Unless Mrs. Wilson becomes one of the victims. No one deserves to die because of the foolishness of another, even if it is your husband and he’s a friggin’ republican tool who needed to be taken out behind the capital and given a severe “massage” by some fine individuals.
@ Monk and BDM. Exactly. Needless to say, I hope Mrs. W. makes a quick and total recovery.
And then makes some nice brownies for her husband…If she happens to grab the ExLax instead of the chocolate for the frosting, who could blame her? People don’t always think clearly when they’re recovering from a virus…
We should remember that Mrs Wilson did ask her husband who that FOOL was that yelled at the President. So obviously she has some able to discern things. But if she accidentally spilled his coffee in his lap on Sunday morning, I wouldn’t feel too bad, either.
All she has to do is cough near him, but I do like your brownie idea…LOL!
A hard cough would cause a person to possibly spill coffee on another person’s lap…Add the special brownies to that experience and Mr. Wilson might be requiring some health care himself.
Ask AdLib about H1N1 sometimes. I actually heard allot of progressives saying the media and the white house were overreacting to the whole swine flu epidemic. I’m sure glad President Obama was proactive and started taking it seriously right away.
“Plan” they have a plan?
I thought that Sen. Grayson spelt out their plan perfectly and it sounded like business as usual to me, you know, the plan where they would rather let almost 46,000 Americans die every year for lack of healthcare options.
The Republican “Plan” probably involves investing into firms that sell over-priced body bags, which would be owned by other Republicans.
Same would go for coffins, morticians who would give to the GOP, churches that preach fire and brimstone, funeral homes, florists…
Makes one wonder if J.K. Rowling had Republicans in mind when she wrote about ‘Death Eaters.’
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2638/4070310353_926b64c0d7_b.jpg
Auntie Christ
I laughed out loud but think that as absurd and horrific as it sounds, it could well be their “plan.”
Nice to see you here Auntie, welcome to The Planet.
Actually their old plan did include tax credits for buying insurance but since Democrats are doing that the GnOP has to be against it.
Good post. I agree with everyone – what’s “reform” got to do with this “plan”? It changes only one thing – it allows medical providers to turn away undocumented people. Lovely. Visions of post-Katrina-style streets with dead bodies should warm the cockles of their GOP cold hearts.
We are mobilizing our members in the progressive, mainstream Protestant communities of faith (6.5 MILLION in California) to speak up for the Kucinich amendment, a robust public option, and the preservation of women’s right to choose via the Capps Amendment that offers real choices. The GOP have nothing to offer at all. Nothing. And that’s just how they like it, especially the congressional people who live with single payer health care but don’t want KQuark or anyone else to share the bounty. They really are thugs, aren’t they?
Demonstrations in favor of the public option this week in NYC, LA and Atlanta.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/3/800146/-Demonstrations-in-Favor-of-the-Public-Option-This-Week-in-NYC,-LA-and-Atlanta!
Amen we absolutely have to push for the Kucinich amendment.
One more teabagger, oops, mean Conservative Republican – Governor Tim Pawlenty – warning Olympia Snowe about her position in the GOP if she dares to vote for health care reform.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/66079-pawlenty-takes-on-snowe
Moderates? Moderates? We don’t need no stinking moderates in the Republican Party – the party of right, of might, and slight.
You know javaz, I hope they go even further right. Let them marginalize themselves out of existence. We need a “New Whig Party”. Our republic is strong enough to formulate new party’s
javaz. Just to bolster your line about teabagers and “no stinking moderates” take a glance at this article.
Dick Armey purging the moderates. New Whigs here we come.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/03/armey-disruption-memo/
Good post KQ, Been reading about some of this since this morning on the “lefty blogs”.
B-B-B-But Rep Boner said some thing else this summer:
In a blog post in June, Boehner wrote, “Quality health coverage must exist for every American, regardless of preexisting health conditions.”
That was from his own congressional “column.
“You Lie”??
Here’s another tidbit you might enjoy.
“Healthcare provision seeks to embrace prayer treatments –
A little-noticed measure would put Christian Science healing sessions on the same footing as clinical medicine. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state.”
“The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.”
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,2239900.story?page=1
This article is a real eye-opener since it concerns making spiritual healing on par with medical science, has to do with the IRS allowing spiritual healing costs as tax deductions, and would allow religious healers to be compensated the same as medical practitioners.
Thanks for writing about health care, KQ, as it is one of my husband’s and my greatest concerns!
(hope this is the correct place for this post)
Great post, again, KQ!
Read about the G-NO-Plan earlier and it seemed to me that it is pretty much the status quo, except for a few minor changes, and one major change – No health care for undocumented workers.
I am wondering if that means ERs will be allowed to turn away certain people unless they show their papers?
Knowing the family valuin’, bible thumpin’, gun totin’ Conservatives, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Good point.