That's for families. It's less for individuals. A very poor single individual will still have to fork over $750 if he is caught without insurance. And employers aren't even required to provide coverage.
And thus it ends.
Let's face it -- this plan is toast. The moment most Americans hear the phrase "$3,800 fine" they will snarl like badgers with PMS. Baucus, who is firmly in the insurance industry's pocket, has managed to come up with a "compromise" that will infuriate both left and right.
First. let's glance at the left. Here's lambert quoting Andrew Coates:
The proposal has come straight from the insurance industry: criminalize the uninsured and subsidize unaffordable private insurance premiums with public fundsI'm curious: Which clause of the Constitution gives Congress the right to mandate that all Americans buy any given product offered by private industry? Baucus' plan is clearly modeled on RomneyCare in MA, about which Coates offers this choice observation:
In Massachusetts when you lose your job you still lose your health insurance, the reform does not protect you from financial ruin when illness strikes, and health insurance remains far too expensive.Irritatingly, the ignorant masses will presume that this plan is a form of socialized medicine. They will so presume for no reason beyond the fact that Baucus has a D next to his name. In fact, it's nothing of the sort. Marcy Wheeler has it exactly right:
Bad Max Baucus' health care plan is, best as I can tell, an attempt to turn the middle class into serfs to the health care industry.That's just the first line of a blog post you must read in full. Another excerpt:
So what's to stop the hospitals for charging $10,000 for you to walk through the door? Or for Pfizer to charge you $5,000 a year for your required medicine? What's to stop the insurance companies from charging everyone that 13% rate on premiums, as a matter of course? Under Bad Max's plan, because it requires everyone to have insurance, corporations actually have more of a guarantee (and therefore an incentive) to charge such exorbitant fees.In other words, the Baucus plan is not socialism -- it's capitalism at its worst. We're all moving to Pullman in the bad old days, and we'll all owe our souls to the company store. This "socialist" scheme was cobbled together by the insurance industry itself -- specifically, by Liz Fowler of WellPoint, the listed author of the actual text. Here's our friend Red Dragon:
The whole reason I don't have Health Insurance is because I can't afford the damn thing! let me say that again....."I CAN"T AFFORD THE DAMN THING!So that's the reaction on the left. No-one seems to be dancing a jig on the right, either.
Now comes word (to be honest, we knew this whore was pushing this option for some time) that Sen. Max (pour some corporate sugar on me) Baucus wants to FINE you $3.800 dollars if you don't buy into his "Corporate Health Care insurance Welfare Plan..............!"
The Moonie Times seems unhappy. The Lonely Conservative blog doesn't seem very enthused. The John Birch Society seems to be aghast, although they -- of course -- consider the Baucus plan to be a "government takeover of healthcare." No no no; quite the opposite. This is a health insurance industry takeover of the government; that's why Liz did the writing.
Bottom line: Max Baucus is the ultimate uniter. Both left and right despise him. Over the next few days, he will become known as the most unpopular elected official in America. His only competition will be Barack Obama -- if Obama embraces this legislative toxin.
Obama deserves a goodly amount of the blame for this debacle -- but hardly all of the blame. Much of the discredit goes to the Republican propagandists who did a remarkable job of convincing the public to turn against the public option.:
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who once supported a public option, said Tuesday that after hearing from constituents during the August recess, he's changed his mind.This propaganda blitz was directed at southern Dems and blue dogs. Let's face it: Without support from some blue dogs, no public option would ever have occurred.
"If House leadership presents a final bill that contains a government-run public option, I will oppose it," Ross said.
That option appears to be dead. As soon as word gets out about the $3,800 fine, the Baucus plan will be just as dead.
We are right back where we started.
5 comments:
Failure was the plan all along.
BO is POTUS. He and his party are completely responsible. It's unbelievable they wanted to rush this thing through in Aug before anyone had read and understood it. And one of their marketing failures is that most of us/them still don't understand it. This bill needs to be killed. They need to start over and HONESTLY bring the repubs in on the debate. And the debate should be broadcasted on C-span.
If you haven't read Matt Taibbi's account of what is happening, do. It is very long, but very worth the read.
PREVIEW
"Over the course of this summer, those two failed systems [heath care and government] have collided in a spectacular crossroads moment in American history. We have an urgent national emergency on the one hand, and on the other, a comfortable majority of ostensibly simpatico Democrats who were elected by an angry population, in large part, specifically to reform health care. When they all sat down in Washington to tackle the problem, it amounted to a referendum on whether or not we actually have a functioning government.
"It's a situation that one would have thought would be sobering enough to snap Congress into real action for once. Instead, they did the exact opposite, doubling down on the same-old, same-old and laboring day and night in the halls of the Capitol to deliver us a tour de force of old thinking and legislative trickery, as if that's what we really wanted. Almost every single one of the main players — from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Blue Dog turncoat Max Baucus — found some unforeseeable, unique-to-them way to fuck this thing up. Even Ted Kennedy, for whom successful health care reform was to be the great vindicating achievement of his career, and Barack Obama, whose entire presidency will likely be judged by this bill, managed to come up small when the lights came on."
Then he gives a blow by blow expose of what happened behind closed doors to get to Baucus's monstrosity you reported on so well.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/1
Damn! am I pissed Joe!
I did a quick drive-by past the so-called "Progressive" sites and I still do not see any OUTRAGE directed towards Max ( Lady in Red ) Baucus for this bit of prostitution!
Can you imagine the mouth's foaming had this been Bill or Hillary that had floated this garbage?
We'll, in Baucus' case, you know what they say...."A whore is a whore is a whore is a whore...and so on and so on!
Let's face it -- this plan is toast. The moment most Americans hear the phrase "$3,800 fine" they will snarl like badgers with PMS
Indeed....but will they hear of it? I don't see the press informing us of this on TV , where most get their news. It's usually info found on blogs if at all.
However I tell you, if this disgusting shakedown is implemented, the town halls will look like ice cream socials.
The biggest obstacle to the insurance compaines getting their bill this summer has been it's 100% mind blowing greed. Greed so total, even DC flinches .If it was just 95% greed, they would have something for Barry to sign. The looters are their wrose enemy ( good).
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