Support SJ as Chair of Federal Commission on Death Panels

LINK to HA Whither Healthcare?

1. Reconciliation: tax base

This needs a LOT of progressive pressure. Important issues are seeing that the tax base includes the tax on families above 250k, This creates a critical precedent for health care being funded form the general fund rather than from a regressive kludge like SS. Support the House.


2. National Health Insurance Exchange.

Both bills have this and this DOES create a national health care system. Exchanges should be national, NOT state based as in the Senate bill. We already have such a program for Federal Employees so this is not a huge step. The major reason we need the house version is that the senate proposes state by state exchanges. Since a state may have as few as 2 or 3 companies, state exchanges do littler to create competition.

BTW John McCain campaigned FOR a nation exchange. Support McCain and the House.

3. Rationalize Medicare Cuts

Neither bill does this in an effective way. The underlying issue is cost shifting. Currently Medicare pays a part of the bill for the uninsured because those costs are shifted to all insured patients.

If National Health care works at all, the change in cost shifting should be used to offset costs of medicare. This ought to be explicit.

Unfortunately, both bills also include top down efforts to control costs by setting payment levels rather than negotiating them. This is not likely to work politically. Offsetting this with tax funds, perhaps using the House tax idea, would be great.

Support the House.

4. Cut the Pork

Of ALL bills this one ought to minimize pork. The obvious examples in Nebraska and Louisiana have been oversimplified. Louisiana especially DOES gave a unique problem because of Katrina and because the state is amongst the last to still have "charity" It would do us ALL well to replace this as pork with some national rules in re federal mandates that would address a wider set of state by state issues.

Support Obama's Technocrats

5. Death Panels

We NEED mechanisms to assess quality and quantity. Calling them death panels is a disgusting piece of unpatriotic propaganda.

Both bills already contain similar mechanisms for oversight. Strengthen ing these committees by assuring transparency and insulting them from interest group politics is critical to making the system work.

I have no idea who can help this happen but would really like to see BHO get VERY tough on this. One way to do this might be to keep insurance companies OFF of the commissions. Ideally the commissions would be comprised of objective scientists, perhaps under the NIH.
A structure like the FDA is worth considering, i.e. a structure that is seen as objective.

Support SJ as Chair of Federal Commission on Death Panels