2009 US healthcare reform

About

Note: this page should probably be split into US/healthcare reform and US/healthcare reform/2009, and possibly a 3rd article about the results (i.e. Obamacare).

It has been widely agreed for many years that the US healthcare system is in need of some kind of reform. Due to the vast inefficiencies of the existing US system, which among the wealthy/industrialized nations has both some of the highest per-capita costs and lowest service quality, most liberals and a few conservatives agree that a major overhaul is needed.

The majority of conservatives are generally against a major reform and instead favor regulatory changes to improve the existing system, keeping it both "competitive" (a code-word meaning "profitable to investors" and "big-business friendly") and "uniquely American" (a meaningless phrase in this context, since any solution would be dealing with the "uniquely American" style of government and healthcare infrastructure, thus making it "uniquely American" regardless).

In the middle months of 2009, having dealt with the immediate emergency of the ongoing 2008 financial crisis though various bailouts and stimulus packages, The Obama-Biden administration began a push for healthcare reform. This plan immediately came under fire from members of the political Right, who have generally become the pawns of well-funded interests of all varieties; in this case, the medical insurance industry was found to be backing many of the protests and Tea Parties".

Reform legislation eventually passed in March, 2010, with absolutely no Republican support -- even though the bill was essentially identical to a Republican proposal, often referred to as "Gingrichcare" or "Romneycare", made during the Clinton-Gore administration.

Initiatives

• 2009-07-14 US 111 HR 3200 (OpenCongress, THOMAS), "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009", has the backing of Obama-Biden; more complex, retains option to use existing insurance plans
• 2009-01-26 US 111 HR 676 (Wikipedia) sponsored by John Conyers, Jr. "To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, improved health care delivery, and for other purposes." Essentially makes Medicare universal; single-payer plan. Obama-Biden is not backing this bill, as Obama has apparently dropped support for single-payer, and it seems to have dropped off the radar -- which is too bad, because most people who support HR3200 would probably support HR676 even more.
  • FAQ
  • 2013-02-11 Call Congress – Single-Payer Bill to be Reintroduced
  • 2013-02-14 Conyers Reintroduces National Single-Payer Health Care Bill

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia:
  • Health care reform in the United States
  • Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: signed 2010-03-23

• Three Days of Argument: Obamacare On Trial Audiobook - Complete coverage of the arguments to the Supreme Court regarding Obamacare

Official

• HealthReform.gov

to file

• 2013-02-09 State lacks doctors to meet demand of national healthcare law

Filed

version 2

• 2010-07-08 [Talk|Index] Beck distorts Berwick comment to claim appointment vindicates his fearmongering over rationing § “Glenn Beck claimed that a quote from Obama appointee Donald Berwick "confirms everything" Beck and Fox News had said about how health care reform would result in rationing. In fact, Beck deceptively edited Berwick's comments to remove Berwick's accurate statement that the U.S. health care system already rations.”
• 2010-03-25 [Talk|Index] Final Votes in Congress Cap Battle on Health Bill § “Congress on Thursday gave final approval to a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care overhaul, capping a bitter partisan battle over the most far-reaching social legislation in nearly half a century.”
• 2010-02-04 [Talk|Index] The government has your baby's DNA § “Many parents don't realize their baby's DNA is being stored in a government lab... "We were appalled when we found out," says Brown, who's a registered nurse. "Why do they need to store my baby's DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later on, or get health insurance."”
• 2009-11-06 [Talk|Index] Kline: Democrats spend too much, accomplish too little § “For months, I've been calling on my Democratic colleagues to press the 'reset' button and embrace commonsense, targeted solutions to strengthen and reform health care. Democrats have instead left Republicans with no alternative but to propose our own plan.”
• 2009-11-04 [Talk|Index] The Public Option Fight Continues – But How Exactly Does Reform Work? § “The basic theme of health care reform is that insurance would be mandatory, subsidized and regulated.” - an overview of the bills currently being reconciled
• 2009-09-11 [Talk|Index] Right-Wing Health Care Group Misled Canadian Interviewees Who Appeared In Anti-Reform Ads § “CPR, an anti-health care reform group led by the disgraced former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Rick Scott, [ran] a commercial attacking the Canadian health care system. ... CTV British Columbia is reporting that CPR misled several of the interviewees who appeared in their ads.”
• 2009-09-10 [Talk|Index] Did You Wonder Why 'Lord' Boustany Gave The Republican Rebuttal? Maybe Because He's Been Sued For Malpractice So Many Times. § “I think "Doctor" Boustany (as he prefers to be called) is an interesting choice for the GOP rebuttal. After all, not only does he seem to enjoy seeking legal redress for some colorful problems, he's also been the defendant in at least eight malpractice suits.”
• 2009-09-10 [Talk|Index] Boustany Sees Areas of Agreement with Obama? § “Just last night, Boustany, in a prepared, written speech, said policymakers need to "start over" from scratch. About 12 hours later, Boustany believes Democrats and Republicans already agree on 80% of the entire reform initiative?”
• 2009-09-04 [Talk|Index] The right way to debate healthcare reform § “...the people speaking with Franken were tea party activists who "staked out" Franken's booth at what looks like the state fair "and confronted him loudly when he arrived." .. What ended up happening, though, was a civil, reasoned discussion about the current healthcare situation in the U.S....”
• 2009-08-15 [Talk|Index] Why We Need Health Care Reform § “Our nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.”
• 2009-08-14 [Talk|Index] The Senate HELP Committee “public option” will be multiple “options,” and these will be run by insurance companies § “Section 3106 is difficult to read. ... I will tell you first what I derive from it in the plainest language possible, and then discuss some of its provisions so you can judge for yourself whether I got it right.”
• 2009-08-14 [Talk|Index] False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots § “the rumor – which has come up at Congressional town-hall-style meetings this week in spite of an avalanche of reports laying out why it was false – was not born of anonymous e-mailers, partisan bloggers or stealthy cyberconspiracy theorists [but rather] from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton's health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey...”
• 2009-08-11 [Talk|Index] Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls? § “These "town meetings" are really nothing but propaganda sessions run by members of Congress who are trying to burnish their fraudulent credentials as public servants, and trying to perpetrate a huge fraud of a health care bill that purports to be a progressive "reform" of the US health care system, but that actually further entrenches the control of that system by the insurance industry, and to a lesser extent, the hospital and drug industry.”
• 2009-08-11 [Talk|Index] The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare § “While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.”
• 2009-08-09 [Talk|Index] How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy § “I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.”
• 2009-08-08 [Talk|Index] Reply to critics of "Bait and switch: How the 'public option' was sold" § “Several "yes buts" took issue with a comment I posted on {{date|2009-07-20|July 20
• 2009-08-07 [Talk|Index] What if We Win the Healthcare Fight? § “If we win, we’ll trumpet the success as a great triumph for liberty and individualism. Really though it will be a triumph for inertia.”
• 2009-07-20 [Talk|Index] Bait and switch: How the 'public option' was sold § “...the leaders of the "public option" movement haven't told the public they have abandoned their original vision. It’s high time they did.”
• 2009-07-15 [Talk|Index] A face of the uninsured, a state of denial § “A proponent himself of single-payer when he was but an Illinois legislator, Obama now counsels that the way to achieve universal coverage is by reforming – or "building on" – the private insurance system while bolstering the public insurance sector.”
• 2009-07-06 [Talk|Index] How Long Does it Take to Set Up a Health Co-Op? § “Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, tells Bloomberg that if existing regional co-ops are the model, such plans can take decades to fully develop.”

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