Campaign Silo

Dear Lynn Woolsey: If You’ve Got 60 Votes, Name ‘Em

Jane Hamsher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:15:30 +0000

So the Blue Dogs say they have the votes to kill the health care bill, and Lynn Woolsey responds:

The California Democrat said that she has whipped the progressive caucus in the House and concluded that more than 60 of its members would vote against a health care reform plan that had a public option tied to economic triggers. It is a line in the sand that she and others expressed to Emanuel when he met with his former House Democrats.

If Lynn Woolsey's got 60 votes, I've got leprechauns in my laundry room.

Nobody takes the progressives seriously because they swagger around with these kind of cheap bluffs and everybody knows it's horseshit. We just called over to her office and asked for names. We were told that "the CPC does not want us to release that information."

They don't even want their names publicly attached to it, but they're going to take a stand when it's time to vote?

Look, I like Lynn Woolsey. She's one of the few who will take a stand for what she believes in. But people are tired of these agreements made behind closed doors that nobody feels like they have to live up to. We've been getting screamed at all day by Congressional offices pissed off because people are calling and asking them to take The Pledge, and they don't want to -- despite the fact that Progressive Caucus already said its members would vote against any health care bill that doesn't have a strong public option.

It's about to get brutal. Going to the Hill yesterday with NYCEve really changed something for me. All these people running around, who have full health care for themselvles, who are wallowing in abstractions about insurance industry profits. It's time to get real, and demand to know where people stand.

If the Blue Dogs want people from their districts camping out in front of their offices who have been victims of the health insurance industry, we can make that happen. If progressives won't declare where they stand, they can look forward to the same -- and they have a whole lot more to lose.

Tell us your health care horror story. Join us in Washington DC.

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Health Care: It’s Time To Get Mad

Jane Hamsher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:48:57 +0000

It's offensive that the insurance industry exploits people who have had serious illnesses to argue against providing health care for people with serious illnesses. It's offensive that they're trying to make the argument that the only reason American want a public plan is because PHrma is putting up advertisements supporting a public plan. It's offensive that wingnuts can get away with asserting that they are just concerned about patient's rights, or that the American people accept their astroturf bs in overwhelming numbers.

When NYCeve and I were on the Hill yesterday, we spoke to a woman who had to get a legal separation from her husband so she could get cancer treatment for her 10 year-old son. The fact is that 76% of Americans support a public plan because the current system is a bureaucratic nightmare of monumental proportions and anyone who is talking about guarding insurance company profit at this point is a moral monster.

The Blue Dogs just rebelled against the House bill, which currently includes a public option, and 52 members are saying they won't support it. Their coffers are overflowing with health insurance industry money, and unless people speak out and shame them, tell their health insurance industry horror stories, we're going to lose this one.

Congress never had ordinary people come to the Hill and tell their insurance industry horror stories. But the insurance industry got plenty of time. We want to know your story. If you tell it to us, we'll get it to your member of Congress. And we want you to come to Washington DC and join us as we let Congress know that the status quo is an outrage.

It's time to get mad.

Let's do it together.

More House Democrats Push for Robust Public Plan

Scarecrow — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:15:26 +0000

Another 22 members of the House, including some moderates, sent at letter yesterday to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer to express their "strong desire to see a robust public health insurance option" in the health reform bill.

The members called the public option "essential if we are to provide more choice for individuals and businesses and if we are serious about lowering costs for both."

The letter contains most of the arguments in favor of a public option we've seen elsewhere: providing both competition and "a necessary benchmark" for how we want health insurers to function or lose market share.

But the letter focuses on how competitive the public option might be. The members agree with proposals for a "level playing field" -- the devil in the details design battles will occur there. For example, these members want the public plan to pay providers more than Medicare payment rates, whereas the current Tri-Committee House bill would allow the public plan to at least start with Medicare payment rates to make it less costly.

Why does this matter? To assure the public plan's competitiveness, the members urge that the public plan have access to strong provider networks, and they apparently believe you can't get that if you don't pay more than Medicare pays:

But a level playing field that the public option must have access to a provider network that will allow it to compete, from the beginning, with private insurers. Without some connection to an established provider network, such as Medicare, a public option will never be able to offer real choice to businesses and individual consumers.

You'll recall that one of the AMA concerns about a public plan option was that doctors and other health providers not be required to offer care to patients in the public plan if they chose not to. But public plan advocates have argued that if providers want to retain practices based on Medicare patients, then those providers should also accept public plan patients.

The 22 Congresspeople are thus weighing in on this debate on the side of giving public plan patients access to provider networks the same as, or comparable to, the provided networks that now accept Medicare patients, but paying them more. This is important, because without strong provider networks, some patients might never choose the public plan, but they might be more expensive.

This is where the horse trading will pay off or not. Doctors and hospitals reluctant to take on public plan patients will want assurances they won't be bound by Medicare's lower payment rates. In the meantime, WH Budget Director Orszag is pushing Congress to assume lower Medicare payments in the future for treating uninsured patients since, the theory goes, many more people will be insured. And the Finance Committee is looking for more Medicare savings to keep the budget impacts below some arbitrary figure, like $1 trillion.

At the same time Orszag is telling Congress it's not really reforming the system unless it changes not just how much we pay but what we pay for. That issue is about paying for quality care and better outcomes rather than just the quantity of treatments under a fee-for-service regime.

Those are huge changes and huge dollars at stake for the industry, and we can see both Orszag's letter and the letter from House Dems as pushing different pieces of how those dollars get allocated. Stay tuned.

A Former Congressional Staffer’s Experience With Health Insurance

slinkerwink — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:39:20 +0000

I thought I'd offer my own experiences as a former congressional staffer of what it was like to have health insurance in Congress. I wrote about being laid off after working for the state government in Texas, and quickly faced the pitfalls of COBRA insurance and the problems with our health insurance system.

I filed for unemployment a month ago, and was denied unemployment benefits. I've been living off my savings ever since being laid off. My savings will dwindle down by the end of this summer, with most of it going to my COBRA premiums. I'll have paid over $3032 for my health insurance so far in the past eight months. And I still find it hard to believe that my annual premium in Congress was a mere $1068 for health insurance. Americans should have that affordability with their health insurance, and not have to worry about being denied health care like congressional staffers in Congress.

It's scary though. I chose to keep my COBRA insurance after I left the U.S. House of Representatives last year because the health insurance benefits offered by my state employer wasn't adequate. It quickly got expensive for me when I moved to Texas.

My monthly insurance premium in the U.S. House of Representatives under Blue Cross Blue Shield was $89 a month, with the rest of the premium fully subsidized by my employer, which would be you, the taxpayer. I was only denied once by Blue Cross Blue Shield in the three years I was in Congress.

However, when I left the U.S. House of Representatives to work in Texas, I had to bear the full cost of my monthly premium under COBRA. It was now $379 a month instead of the $89 a month. On my state employee salary, it required a lot of belt-tightening and making sure that I always had money left over to pay COBRA. You know what the funny part is? I don't even use COBRA because I'm afraid they'll deny me if I go to the hospital or visit a doctor since they've done it before. I had food poisoning on New Year's Eve, missed the family party in South Texas, and had to be taken to the hospital. Blue Cross Blue Shield denied the ambulance transport claim, which was $500 dollars. I couldn't afford to pay $500 dollars, and the cost from their denial of another claim to pay for the removal of a pre-cancerous cyst. My mother had to end up paying these bills since Blue Cross Blue Shield refused to pay these bills. I learned that just having insurance doesn't mean they'll pay. I was lucky to work in Congress for the past three years because they very rarely deny the claims of congressional staffers and their bosses under their health plans.

Since these private insurance plans under FEHB very rarely deny claims to Members of Congress and their staff, it explains why some of these Members of Congress are out of touch and indifferent to the very REAL pain and suffering of millions of Americans under these private insurers.

It's why I've been advocating for a strong, robust Medicare-like public option in the past few months. The public option is the LINE in the sand for me in health care reform.

If it can happen to me---it can happen to these congressional staffers who work for their bosses who are in charge of determining the passage of health care reform. Please remind them of that when you call your Senators and Representatives, and use the Public Option Whip Tool to ask them to stand firm on the public option and to vote against any bill without a public option.

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OFA Finally Joins the Health Care Fight

Marisa McNee — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:15:35 +0000

After a blistering piece by Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post, Organizing for America responds…with a vaguely worded email.

Meyerson had this to say about OFA’s effectiveness in pushing Obama’s agenda:

Major progressive legislation in America is seldom enacted absent a mass movement clamoring for change. The New Deal's legislative triumphs were the product not merely of Franklin Roosevelt's political genius but of the political pressure built up by general strikes and wild-eyed campaigns for social insurance. The great civil rights legislation of the 1960s was the product not merely of Lyndon Johnson's legendary political skills but also of the blood and sweat of a generation of demonstrators in the Jim Crow South.

Obama and his lieutenants, and the leaders of progressive organizations, know this history inside and out. They might have concluded that no equivalent movement exists for universal health care. But the administration's willingness to limit the potential of its army of supporters and the progressive groups' unwillingness to try to create a movement (say, for single-payer health care) that goes beyond the administration's goals have all but ensured that legislators will feel no major pressure for systemic change as Congress crafts national policy. If Obama doesn't want to use his mega-list to pursue his mega-goal, supporters of universal coverage might ask him, as Abraham Lincoln once asked the notoriously inactive Gen. George McClellan, to borrow his army as long as he isn't using it.

Late yesterday OFA sent a health care email:

These calls are an easy but powerful way to make a difference. Just tell whoever answers the phone that you’re a constituent (mention what city you’re calling from), and that you’re counting on your representative to support real health care reform, which must:

* Reduce costs

* Guarantee a choice of plans and doctors — including the choice of a robust public insurance option

*Ensure quality, affordable care for every American

The opponents of real reform have deep pockets and insider access, and they’re holding nothing back in their drive to derail progress before the plans go public.

All of this resulted in a rather astute observation from Greg Sargent: “If Obama’s Political Operation Can Pressure Senators, Why Not Liberal Groups?”:

Obama is reported to have said this about liberal groups: “We shouldn’t be focusing resources on each other.” If this is true, it raises the question of why his own political operation should do this, but outside groups shouldn’t.
But it’s also possible that OFA’s efforts show that the White House wants outside pressure on Senators. The groups are doing exactly what OFA is doing: Calling on constituents to demand Senators back a public plan. OFA’s activities make the meme that Obama wants the groups to muzzle themselves seem pretty far fetched.

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My Healthcare Speech on the Hill

Jane Hamsher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:08:10 +0000

Yesterday NYCeve and I went to the Hill at the invitation of John Conyers to speak before progressive House staff members on our Citizen Whip Count effort.

Thanks to Chairman Conyers and his staff for giving us this opportunity.

Citizen Whip Effort Welcomes Mike Stark: Our Man On the Hill

Jane Hamsher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:58:45 +0000

Mike Stark

Our good friend Mike Stark joins joins our Citizen Whip Effort today. Many readers will remember him for -- well, being Mike Stark. He'll be on the Hill, flip video camera in hand, asking progressive members of Congress about their position on a public plan.

On June 24, the Quad Caucus --which represents 117 member of the House -- released a statement saying their members would vote against any health care bill that did not have a robust public plan:

The leaders of the black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Progressive caucuses said at a news conference that they would consider a government-run plan to be robust if it resembles Medicare, the health entitlement for the elderly. The plan would have to be available to everyone in the country and could not be subject to a “trigger,” or some other mechanism that might delay its implementation, the lawmakers said.

Here is what the Quad caucus principles, and here are the Progressive caucus principles (which are even stronger).

Mike Stark will be greeting members of Congress as they stroll around the Hill and asking them on video if they will stand by their commitment to vote against any health care plan that isn't available nationwide, on day one, and accountable to Congress and the voters.

And I'll be on MSNBC at 3:30 today, talking with David Shuster about whether outside groups have had an effect on the health care bill.

In a word -- yes.

Twitter Bomb the Public Option Pledge

Marisa McNee — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:14:09 +0000

It's time to break out the organizational big guns in our whipping operation -- Twitter:

"Calling @jaredpolis, will you pledge to vote against any health care bill with w/ a weak public option? #publicoption"

If you've got a Twitter account, we could use your help.

Here are our targets on twitter:

Neil Abercrombie: @neilabercrombie
Joe Baca: @BacaCA43
Mike Doyle: @USRepMikeDoyle
Marcia Fudge: @mlfudge
Mike Honda: @RepMikeHonda
Jay Inslee: @RepInsleeNews
Dennis Kucinich: @Dennis_Kucinich
Ben Ray Lujan: @repbenraylujan
Ed Markey: @MarkeyMemo
Gregory Meeks: @GregoryMeeks
George Miller: @askgeorge
Chellie Pingree: @chelliepingree
Jared Polis: @jaredpolis
Charlie Rangel: @cbrangel
Tim Ryan: @timryan

While you're at it, give Representatives Ellison and Waters a thanks:

Keith Ellison: @keithellison
Maxine Waters: @MaxineWaters

Why Can’t A Better Health Care Plan Be The Next Stimulus?

Jane Hamsher — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:17:09 +0000

We bailed out the banks to the tune of 2 trillion dollars in the past year, put through an enormous stimulus bill, bailed out the European banks, put through yet another war supplemental, and never asked how we were going to pay for it. We just wrote a bunch of big checks.

But now that it has come to taking care of the health of Americans, well, we have to tighten the old belt and it's suddenly "pay-as-you-go."

Everyone is obsessed about "how we're going to pay for this" when discussing health care. And as long as we're prisoners of a CBO score (is it $1 trillion? $1.4 trillion?) we're going to wind up passing a bill that does not cover average Americans in the way they need to be covered so that as a country we can step forward into a new business era of international economic interdependence. Other industrialized nations cover health care. We're saddling business with that cost, and a huge chunk of what we are planning to spend will go to bail out insurance companies.

Meanwhile, just as Krugman and others predicted, White House aides are saying we need another stimulus plan. Joe Biden and Steny Hoyer have sent up trial balloons.

Middle class Americans pay huge premiums every month for junk insurance. Four hundred, six hundred, a thousand dollars a month easily. Even if they have employer-based insurance, huge deductibles mean that every trip to the doctor is costly. If those costs get cut, a huge financial burden is lifted off average Americans. They are no longer prisoners of a job, or a state, just to keep an insurance policy they can't leave without risking their economic security or their health.

But more importantly, a huge burden of anxiety is lifted from Americans in a time of economic insecurity. If a plan is passed that only affects the poor, it's going to anger the middle class when they are the ones that get shafted once again. It's only going to increase anger and frustration that there is nobody at the helm who cares about them, and confirm their fears that government exists to benefit Wellpoint at their expense.

I was up on the Hill yesterday, and discovered that Congress never had ordinary people come and testify about their insurance company horror stories, because nobody wanted to piss the insurance companies off. It was incomprehensible and outrageous.

Compared to the huge sums we've shelled out without batting an eyelash over the past year, why are we going to have a shitty, compromised plan just so Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe can achieve their objectives of protecting insurance company profits, when for $30 billion more a year we could actually do it right? Why is that suddenly such a big price tag?

In short, if we need more economic stimulus, why aren't we talking about health care as economic stimulus?

Sen. Blanche Lincoln Is Moving . . . Towards a Public Plan Near You

Scarecrow — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:09:43 +0000

Blanche Lincoln has been spending a lot of time thinking about health care reform, and about that ad Blue America plans to start running in Arkansas asking why she hasn't committed to a strong public plan that forces insurance companies to shape up or lose market share.

So she's moving, not to another state, but to another point of view.

Via dday and Digby (and help from Jane, Howie Klein and John Amato), whose efforts helped create the ads Sen. Lincoln doesn't want to see, here's the latest letter the Senator sent her constituents (in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) on what health care reform needs to include. As Digby says, "she's almost there."

After citing several insurance/health horror stories, Lincoln concludes with this:

Arkansans deserve better.

Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans.Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan.

Coverage alone does not result in access. We must invest in our nation’s health care infrastructure-its providers, technologies and facilities-especially in rural America where health care services and providers are fewer and farther between. We also must deliver health care more efficiently and create incentives that promote high-quality outcomes for patients instead of simply encouraging more provider visits and services.

Above all, we must bring stability to health care. Stable health care coverage will protect Arkansans during tough times and ensure that they do not lose insurance when they get sick. Stable costswill mean that Arkansans will not be subject to large premium increases each year that erode their paychecks. Stable quality of care will ensure that Arkansans have dependable treatment options so they can see a doctor of their choice when they need care.

As we work to reform health care, we must be responsible and pay for reform without adding to the deficit and increasing taxes on hard-working Arkansans.

Unfortunately, opponents of reform, who have no real plan for improving health care, are already using the tired arguments of the past. They say that Congress is trying to create “more government” or a “Washington takeover” of health care, which will raise your taxes, get between you and your doctor, and eliminate private insurance. It’s a strategy that spreads misinformation and generates fear to preserve the status quo. Arkansans should not be misled by those who oppose real reform.

I am under no illusion that achieving meaningful health care reform will be an easy task. However, I am committed to reform because Arkansans must have certainty that if they get sick, they will have options to receive stable, affordable and high-quality health care.

Congress is on the verge of developing a health care policy that will work better for everyone and we cannot afford to let this opportunity slip away. Our health care crisis was not created overnight and it will not be fixed overnight. It will take all of us-individuals, employers, insurers and providers-to share in the responsibility and come together to make this possible. We know that government cannot do it alone. The key is to take what works and make it better for the next generation of Arkansans. We can no longer afford to sit back and do nothing.

There's hope for Blanche, because there's lots of good stuff here in addition to the movement on the public plan. Well done, Arkansas. And we're not done yet.

More: Greg Sargent picks up the story
dday at Digby's, Pressure works