"Anyone seen GOP minority leader Gingrich lately?"

Yup, I have actually. He just announced he is going to be the next President!

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

He just announced he is going to be the next President!

Well maybe he will after he strangles a few giraffes first.

"The corporate domination of the health reform process continues! Liz Fowler, former VP of Public Policy for Wellpoint who left that lucrative position to head the health reform process in the Senate and make sure that the reform was written to insurance company specifications, now heads to HHS to make sure, we imagine,... that the health reform regulations similarly favor her industry. This is such blatant corporatism! Are we seeing a trend here yet? The only way to end this corruption is to remove the health insurance companies from the picture." .................. Margaret Flowers

Top staffer on healthcare reform effort headed to HHS

By Julian Pecquet - 07/08/10 04:32 PM ET The chief health counsel to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is expected to leave the panel soon to work for President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services.
Sources on Capitol Hill and K Street tell The Hill that Liz Fowler would join the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (OCIIO), which is charged with implementing many of the provisions of the healthcare reform law that she helped write.


http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...-headed-to-hhs

Originally Posted by Publius

Oh, ok, I get it, 2010 Obamacare is just like the 1993 GOP's “free-market, market-based-system approach.”

No, no, Rahm's “It's very similar to the bill Republicans advocated in '93” has nothing in common with "the just-passed Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act."

No, no, no, What's BS about this?

Looks like a conservative/corporate win to me. I offer the following for your consideration:

Kaiser Family Foundation
July 14, 2010
What Conservatives Are Winning
By Drew Altman, Ph.D., President and CEO

But for all of the frustration and even anger within the conservative movement about where health care is headed, the fact of the matter is that they are winning more than even they may realize in the current health care equation. That’s because the nature of health insurance itself is being redefined and moving gradually but seemingly inexorably in the direction conservatives have long advocated: more consumer “skin in the game” through higher patient deductibles.

Item: In our recent survey of people in the non-group insurance market, we found that the average deductible for an individual policy is now $2,498, and for families it’s $5,149. These are very high thresholds by any standard. Consider, for example, that a family with median income facing such a deductible would be spending almost 10% of their annual income just for their deductible before their insurance kicked in.

Item: The percentage of workers facing high deductibles — $1,000 or more for single coverage — has been growing rapidly. It doubled from 10 percent to 22 percent between 2006 and 2009, and increased from 16 percent to 40 percent in small firms.

Item: Indications are that the share of workers with high deductibles is continuing to grow, a trend I expect our 2010 employer survey to confirm when we release it in September as we have every year for more than a decade now. And a substantial number of these high deductible plans are paired with tax-advantaged savings accounts, which conservatives have long advocated. Facing cost pressures without alternative answers, employers are moving to plans with less comprehensive coverage to reduce their expenses for employee benefits.

Item: Health reform is unlikely to reverse these trends. Large employers will continue to look for ways to address the rising cost of health care. And, for the basic “bronze” insurance plan that people will be required to buy, deductibles could run several thousand dollars for individuals and double that for families. To be sure, other aspects of health reform cut the other way. For example, there will be no cost sharing for preventive services in newly-purchased plans, and insurers will be required to cap consumer out-of-pocket costs at defined levels. And, of course, there are substantial subsidies to reduce premium and out-of-pocket costs for lower-income people. But, for the first time, the government will be defining the threshold that decent insurance must meet, and that minimum coverage will have the kind of high deductibles that conservatives favor.

For several years we have seen moderate increases in premiums for employment-based health insurance. I suspect that rising deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are one explanation for this. It’s simple arithmetic that employers can buy down premium increases by switching to less comprehensive coverage and shifting more costs to workers. Plus, these higher out-of-pocket costs exert downward pressure on utilization – in some cases for the better, in some cases for the worse — and thus on premiums as well. At the same time, people have never been more upset about their own rising health care costs, as the coverage they get offers less and less financial protection.

Looked at through a political lens, liberals have gained through passage of major health reform legislation, including expanded coverage and increased government oversight of the health insurance system. But increasingly, the insurance itself is looking more and more like the vision advanced by conservatives – less comprehensive with more skin in the game. That’s where conservatives may be winning more than they realize in the ongoing battle over the future of health care.

http://www.kff.org/pullingittogether/071410_altman.cfm

Originally Posted by Deb C

Looks like a conservative/corporate win to me.

A conservative/corporate win would have been no HCR at all. A conservative/corporate loss would have been a single-payer system. What we have is a compromise. From the health insurance industry's POV, it's better than what could have happened, but not as good as nothing. From our point of view, exactly the opposite.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

A conservative/corporate win would have been no HCR at all. A conservative/corporate loss would have been a single-payer system. What we have is a compromise. From the health insurance industry's POV, it's better than what could have happened, but not as good as nothing. From our point of view, exactly the opposite.

There's that word "compromise." That will sink the progressive ship everytime.

Originally Posted by Deb C

There's that word "compromise." That will sink the progressive ship everytime.

I disagree. In a non-revolutionary situation -- in a democratic context -- compromise is what allows anything to get done at all. If you insist on a take-no-prisoners attitude, you will accomplish nothing.

It's the nature of progressives to be in the minority most of the time. We're out in front of where most people are ready to be; that's what it means to be progressive. Without imposing dictatorial will on the people (something I believe would be wrong), we cannot achieve results that completely accord with what we believe. What we can do, though, is to achieve partial results, moving the country or the world forward a step or two at a time. Any one of those steps is not very impressive, or seldom so. But over time, the changes created that way can be very substantial indeed.

The only other way to operate is through revolution: a sudden, often violent overthrow of the state in order to impose radical changes. But, aside from the harm done by the disruptions, this often ends up being counterproductive in terms of progressive agendas themselves. Consider the French Revolution, whose ideals were democratic and egalitarian. What happened after King Louis XVI was deposed? A bloodbath and chaos, leading swiftly to the rule of a dictator who ended up calling himself an "emperor." Although Napoleon did prove a capable administrator and imposed many reforms by fiat, he also led France into war against almost all of Europe and his military brilliance proved inadequate to handle that much opposition. He was defeated, and the monarchy was restored. Then what? Another upheaval, another ephemeral republic, another emperor, another war, another defeat. The Third Republic, which was the first genuine French Republic, was finally established in the 1870s -- almost a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille. France has been governed by a republic ever since, except during the brief Nazi occupation, but evolutionary change might have created the thing as quickly as revolution did, and with less pain and suffering along the way.

I do not believe in revolution as a practical matter. The people can only be led so far so fast, and no further, no faster. Our job as progressives is to articulate vision and push for change -- and then make the best reforms that we can, given the political realities of the time. The word for that is: compromise.

It's not a dirty word.

Originally Posted by Deb C

There's that word "compromise." That will sink the progressive ship everytime.

people like you are the reason people hate your generation

Originally Posted by Silifi

people like you are the reason people hate your generation

Hate is what has our world in such a horrible situation. Your probably better person than what you just said to me. There are two main feeling in life, love and fear. Hate is a parent of fear.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I disagree. In a non-revolutionary situation -- in a democratic context -- compromise is what allows anything to get done at all. If you insist on a take-no-prisoners attitude, you will accomplish nothing.

It's the nature of progressives to be in the minority most of the time. We're out in front of where most people are ready to be; that's what it means to be progressive. Without imposing dictatorial will on the people (something I believe would be wrong), we cannot achieve results that completely accord with what we believe. What we can do, though, is to achieve partial results, moving the country or the world forward a step or two at a time. Any one of those steps is not very impressive, or seldom so. But over time, the changes created that way can be very substantial indeed.

The only other way to operate is through revolution: a sudden, often violent overthrow of the state in order to impose radical changes. But, aside from the harm done by the disruptions, this often ends up being counterproductive in terms of progressive agendas themselves. Consider the French Revolution, whose ideals were democratic and egalitarian. What happened after King Louis XVI was deposed? A bloodbath and chaos, leading swiftly to the rule of a dictator who ended up calling himself an "emperor." Although Napoleon did prove a capable administrator and imposed many reforms by fiat, he also led France into war against almost all of Europe and his military brilliance proved inadequate to handle that much opposition. He was defeated, and the monarchy was restored. Then what? Another upheaval, another ephemeral republic, another emperor, another war, another defeat. The Third Republic, which was the first genuine French Republic, was finally established in the 1870s -- almost a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille. France has been governed by a republic ever since, except during the brief Nazi occupation, but evolutionary change might have created the thing as quickly as revolution did, and with less pain and suffering along the way.

I do not believe in revolution as a practical matter. The people can only be led so far so fast, and no further, no faster. Our job as progressives is to articulate vision and push for change -- and then make the best reforms that we can, given the political realities of the time. The word for that is: compromise.

It's not a dirty word.

Isn't it amazing how a definition of words gets in the way of true communication? I am very much for a give and take, that is truly the only way to move forward. What I was referring to was the temptation to settle. Like, compromise our values.

My problem with the bill, is that it wasn't a compromise, even in your definition. Compromise, defined as a give and take situation, is when everyone is brought to the table to negotiate. Way too many people were left out of the talks. The main people invited to the table were promoting a for profit insurance. Not one single payer advocate was invited. And there were numerous single payer advocates that requested to be heard.

I recall Obama saying in one of his campaign speeches that he thought all negotiations on the health care debate needed to be on C-Span, so the citizens could view the conversation. But the reality was hidden talks with insurance lobbyists and meetings that didn't include the activists who he said he would invite during his campaign. Now to me, that has nothing to do with compromise.

Deb, if people in favor of single payer had been brought to the table, it would have made no difference. The bill still had to pass with a majority in the House and a 60-vote majority in the Senate. For purely political reasons, no Republican would vote for it in the Senate (I think not in the House either, correct me if I'm wrong), so it had to get the votes of every single Democrat and Independent in the Senate in order to pass. The Democrats and Independents together had exactly a 60-vote majority with no room to spare. That meant that Senators like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Joseph Lieberman had veto power. Those Senators were never going to support a single-payer system. They wouldn't even support a public option! So a more progressive bill, if it had been "hammered out behind closed doors" as you seem to think this one was, would have been dead in the water when it reached the open-door process of the votes in Congress.

My feeling is that President Obama did what he did in order to have a bill that would pass. He knows how Congress works. It may be disgusting -- hell, it is disgusting, no "may" about it -- but it's reality. Short of a revolution, it's the reality we have to work with. Did he make sure it wasn't too distressing to the insurance companies? Yes, he did. Why did he do this? You think it's because he was in their back pocket. I think it's because he knew any other sort of bill would have a non-starter.

Now, this sort of thing is why I would like to see the Senate rules changed, because there was certainly a simple majority in the Senate behind a public option. (I still don't think there was one behind a single-payer system. There wasn't in the House, either.) Without that ability of a minority party to block any legislation without 60 votes behind it, we would have had a better bill. We would also find ourselves able to pass other things with majorities behind them, and in general it would help legislation be more progressive in times where a progressive majority exists. I think that would be a good thing to do.

But the rules as they exist now are the ones that existed when the health-care bill was being debated, and those are the ones it had to pass under.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

A conservative/corporate win would have been no HCR at all. A conservative/corporate loss would have been a single-payer system. What we have is a compromise. From the health insurance industry's POV, it's better than what could have happened, but not as good as nothing. From our point of view, exactly the opposite.

I disagree that the corporations lost. HCR will assure that almost all HC bills will be paid in a substantial fashion, so the HC industry will no longer need to gouge the "deep pockets" to offset the cost of treating deadbeats. The law also sets low limits on generosity, so you can be certain that there will be a race to the bottom, as one large employer after another tries to be as close to the bottom as possible. I suspect that my wife and I will lose coverage, see higher co-pays or both.

I know you believe that the HCR bill that just passed is a good first step, but is it really? It may take 4 or 5 decades to achieve true reform, now that a quasi-reform has blunted the pain of the issue. Worse, we won't have another 4T to create a crisis mentality, so the next round may only be a little less inadequate than this one.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I disagree that the corporations lost. HCR will assure that almost all HC bills will be paid in a substantial fashion, so the HC industry will no longer need to gouge the "deep pockets" to offset the cost of treating deadbeats. The law also sets low limits on generosity, so you can be certain that there will be a race to the bottom, as one large employer after another tries to be as close to the bottom as possible. I suspect that my wife and I will lose coverage, see higher co-pays or both.

I know you believe that the HCR bill that just passed is a good first step, but is it really? It may take 4 or 5 decades to achieve true reform, now that a quasi-reform has blunted the pain of the issue. Worse, we won't have another 4T to create a crisis mentality, so the next round may only be a little less inadequate than this one.

Healthcare will be taken care of further in the 4T because we won't be able to survive as a nation without reacting to costs in a significant way. Those ballooning costs will kill us, and once we reach the climax, the point of consensus, things like this will likely be taken care of in one way or another.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I disagree that the corporations lost.

I didn't say they did. I said they didn't win. They did about as well as could be expected, given the reality that any HCR passed at all. They lost some, but not as much as they could have.

I know you believe that the HCR bill that just passed is a good first step, but is it really? It may take 4 or 5 decades to achieve true reform, now that a quasi-reform has blunted the pain of the issue.

No, that's not how it works. Passing a first step of reform always makes it easier to pass further reform, not harder. Remember the failure of the Clinton bill in 1993. It took 16 years to make another serious try. If Clinton's bill had passed, we would be much further along towards a real solution now. If this one had failed, we might have had to wait a long time before trying again, and that would really have been disastrous.

Keep in mind that this bill was a BIG bill making sweeping changes to the system. Further reform bills can be much smaller and more narrow in focus. For example, a bill adding a public option could be that and nothing else, not a comprehensive reform of the whole health care system. That kind of thing is much easier both to draft and to pass.

It is always better to pass insufficient reform than to pass none.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Originally Posted by Publius

Oh, ok, I get it, 2010 Obamacare is just like the 1993 GOP's “free-market, market-based-system approach.”

No, no, Rahm's “It's very similar to the bill Republicans advocated in '93” has nothing in common with "the just-passed Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act."

Looks like a conservative/corporate win to me...http://www.kff.org/pullingittogether/071410_altman.cfm

Here's the political game The One is playing... Americans don't cotton to the idea that "We're All Socialists Now," so Rahm has to make Obamacare look just like the 1993 GOP "free-market" approach... but he does so knowing that'll turn-off the critical Dennis Kucinich-wing nuts...

Aw, forget it.

p.s. Go with Dennis K, lady, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act is right up yer liberal socialist alley.

Originally Posted by Publius

Americans don't cotton to the idea that "We're All Socialists Now,"

There you go again. If you're going to confuse the phrase "Tea Partiers" with the word "Americans," you need to qualify the latter. The most common way is by sticking a "real" in front, so that you would then say that "REAL Americans don't cotton to the idea that "We're all socialists now."

After all, 25% of Americans isn't even a majority, let alone all. But it could be a majority (or even all) of "real" Americans, depending on how that "reality" is conceived.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There you go again. If you're going to confuse the phrase "Tea Partiers" with the word "Americans," you need to qualify the latter... 25% of Americans isn't even a majority, let alone all.

Thus the pathetic GOP were essentially no more, post 1934...

With a puny number like 25% I would fully expect the present-day Democratic Party to duplicate their triumph in FDR's first off-year election in 1934, just a few months from now.

Do you expect this, too?

Originally Posted by Publius

Thus the pathetic GOP were essentially no more, post 1934...

That's correct. It's true that in the 1950s, Congress and the White House were won by a party of the same name. But it was not the same party. The Republican Party of 1934 was isolationist and an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism. The GOP of 1952 was internationalist and an advocate of a regulated economy.

It's possible that the Republican Party this time around will in fact go the way of the Whigs, but on the other hand it could play out the way it did last time around, with an eventual return to power under different leadership with a completely different agenda. If the party does disappear, another party will take its place, probably formed from today's conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. If the party doesn't disappear, its future membership will probably be formed from -- today's conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Essentially the same result either way, with only the names changed. But either way, the Republican Party as it exists today is doomed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/7883381/Copying-the-NHS-is-the-last-thing-the-US-should-do.html

The US government, meanwhile, is galloping doggedly in the opposite direction, bizarrely determined to occupy precisely the ideological ground which Britain is abandoning...

Dr Berwick professes a love (which he describes in ecstatic terms that will have a tragicomic ring to most British ears) of just those evils of a national health system with which we are exasperated: the calculated rationing of treatment, and the ruthless enforcement of uniform cost limits, which often puts the most advanced medication and procedures out of reach of patients whose lives might have been extended or transformed by them. Dr Berwick thinks that our own dear National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) – which is scarcely ever out of the headlines for denying some poor suffering victim a remedy that is available in other countries – is simply wonderful...

In Britain, we have maintained a perverse ideological insistence on the principle that it is better to have rationed, centrally controlled, uniformly dispensed health care even if it is poorer in every sense – in terms of resources, productivity, and medical outcomes – than that in which individuals routinely contribute to the cost of their own care. The ban on what is called co-payment, or top-ups, is intended to ensure that no NHS patient will have access to better – or more – treatment than anyone else simply because he is wealthier. We prefer a uniformly mediocre standard of care to an “unfair” one in which the better-off may get different service...

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

WARNING: The poster known as jamesdglick has a history of engaging in fraud. He makes things up out of his own head and attempts to use these blatant lies to score points in his arguments. When you call him on it, he will only lie further. He has such a reputation for doing this that many people here are cowed into silence and will not acknowledge it or confront him on it.

Anyone who attempts to engage with glick will discover this and find out you have wasted your time and energy on an intellectual fraud of the worst sort.

...So cry many Boomers like Haymarket whenever they fail to explain their hypocritical self-justifications, their double-standards, and their double-think forays into evil. Perhaps their consciences bother them, perhaps not. Who knows!

Published on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Obama Hires Former Wellpoint Exec to Implement Health Care Law
by David Sirota

From the Department of You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up, check out this little-noticed report from the Billings Gazette today:


Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law...

Fowler headed up a team of 20-some Senate Finance Committee staffers who helped draft the bill in the Senate. She was Baucus' top health care aide from 2001-2005 and left that job in 2006 to become an executive at WellPoint, the nation's largest private insurer. She was vice president of public policy at WellPoint, helping develop public-policy positions for the company. In 2008, she rejoined Baucus to work on health reform legislation.
For some good background on Fowler and the insidious role she played in killing the public option, watch Bill Moyers' recent segment here.

Bill Moyers segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk

Entire article:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/14-7

Remember this promise?

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Takin...lFactSheet.pdf

But who actually wrote the reform bill?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/20...-fowlers-plan/

Her history!

http://www.healthcareroundtable.net/public/307.cfm

Just in case we didn't understand the implications of this the first time.

Fowler has a brand new job, as reported by The Billings Gazette:

Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law.

Fowler, chief health counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, which Baucus chairs, will become deputy director of the Office of Consumer Information and Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


In other words, implementation of the massive healthcare bill just enacted by the Congress will be overseen by a former high-level executive of the nation's largest private health insurer. As Marcy Wheeler writes: "It’s a nice trick: send your VP to write a law mandating that the middle class buy shitty products like yours, then watch that VP move into the executive branch to 'oversee' the implementation of the law." Indeed, Fowler played a crucial role in shaping the healthcare bill to ensure there was no public option and to compel every single American to purchase the products of the private healthcare industry (including those of her former employer). As Politico put it last year: "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate healthcare negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer." It was Fowler who was literally writing the healthcare bills for Baucus which, at least at the time, progressives found so objectionable

Entire article: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...0/07/15/fowler

How's that, presumably first step to reforming health care, looking now?

Originally Posted by Deb C

Remember this promise?

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Takin...lFactSheet.pdf

But who actually wrote the reform bill?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/20...-fowlers-plan/

Her history!

http://www.healthcareroundtable.net/public/307.cfm

[...]


In other words, implementation of the massive healthcare bill just enacted by the Congress will be overseen by a former high-level executive of the nation's largest private health insurer. As Marcy Wheeler writes: "It’s a nice trick: send your VP to write a law mandating that the middle class buy shitty products like yours, then watch that VP move into the executive branch to 'oversee' the implementation of the law."

Indeed, Fowler played a crucial role in shaping the healthcare bill to ensure there was no public option and to compel every single American to purchase the products of the private healthcare industry (including those of her former employer). As Politico put it last year: "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate healthcare negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer." It was Fowler who was literally writing the healthcare bills for Baucus which, at least at the time, progressives found so objectionable

Entire article: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...0/07/15/fowler

How's that, presumably first step to reforming health care, looking now?

Interesting characterization of Liz Fowler...

From this politico article found by following links from the article:

If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer.

As a senior aide to Baucus, she directs the Finance Committee health care staff, enforces deadlines on drafting bill language and coordinates with the White House and other lawmakers. She also troubleshoots, identifying policy and political problems before they ripen.

“My job is to get from point A to point B,” said Fowler, who’s training for four triathlons this summer in between her long days on Capitol Hill.

Fowler learned as a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania that the United States was the only industrialized country without universal health care, and she decided then to dedicate her professional life to the work.

She first worked for Baucus from 2001 through 2005, playing a key role in negotiating the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. Feeling burned out, she left for the private sector but rejoined Baucus in 2008, sensing that a Democratic-controlled Congress would make progress on overhauling the health care system.

Baucus and Fowler spent a year putting the senator in a position to pursue reform, including holding hearings last summer and issuing a white paper in November. They deliberately avoided releasing legislation in order to send a signal of openness and avoid early attacks.

“People know when Liz is speaking, she is speaking for Baucus,” said Dean Rosen, the health policy adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

So, we have a woman who claims to have dedicated her life to the creation of universal healthcare and who spent a number of years working for government to help achieve that goal. She spends 2 years as a VP in industry and suddenly she is tainted to the point that everything she does needs to be distrusted?

It would seem we need people like her involved. Her industry experience could be helpful in understanding how to create a law that serves that patients well and that the industry can live and function under.

Further the article seems to directly blame her for unpopular decisions such as the elimination of the public option and the inclusion of mandates. This ignores the 60 votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate including people such as Lieberman and Nelson who were unlikely to vote for a bill with a public option. Further, the mandates might be necessary to allow for the insurance of people with pre-existing conditions while keeping prices reasonable. Hillary Clinton thought so in the campaign!

Further, with regards to the Obama administration:

1) Fowler worked for Baucus since 2008. Obama promised regulators in his administration wouldn't be hired to regulate companies they worked for. He had no way to control the hiring decisions of individual congress people.

2) From the linked pdf of Obama promises: "No political appointees in an Obama Administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. A two-year ban will remove the incentive to employers to provide some sort of financial incentive, such as generous severance package, to an employee leaving for a government job with an agency that regulates them." Working on the healthcare bill in a general manner is not "directly" related to the individuals prior company. Further, Fowler has worked for Baucus since 2008 and would appear to be past or approaching her 2 year point in which she would be able to work on anything.

To answer your question, that first step to healthcare reform looks just fine!

Originally Posted by scotths

To answer your question, that first step to healthcare reform looks just fine!

"The elite is most successful which can claim the heartiest allegiance of the fickle crowd; can present itself as most ‘in touch’ with popular concerns; can anticipate the tides and pulses of public opinion; can, in short, be the least apparently ‘elitist.’"

- Christopher Hitchens

"Elizabeth Fowler's first tour of duty with the Senate Finance Committee was not without controversy. Serving as the Chief Health and Entitlements Counsel, she played a major role in forging the Grassley/Baucus compromise bill that led to the 2003 enactment of the Medicare Modernization Act which gave birth to Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage. That legislation, among other things, forbade Medicare from negotiating the cost of pharmaceuticals and generously subsidized the pharmaceutical industry, swelling both that industry's profits and the federal deficit. The bill also created the infamous "donut hole" that required seniors to pay 100% of their prescription costs between $2700 and $4,350 in any given year." ................................. OpEd Report

Originally Posted by Deb C

"Elizabeth Fowler's first tour of duty with the Senate Finance Committee was not without controversy. Serving as the Chief Health and Entitlements Counsel, she played a major role in forging the Grassley/Baucus compromise bill that led to the 2003 enactment of the Medicare Modernization Act which gave birth to Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage. That legislation, among other things, forbade Medicare from negotiating the cost of pharmaceuticals and generously subsidized the pharmaceutical industry, swelling both that industry's profits and the federal deficit. The bill also created the infamous "donut hole" that required seniors to pay 100% of their prescription costs between $2700 and $4,350 in any given year." ................................. OpEd Report

So.. She was involved in a compromise that had some negative aspects? The quote doesn't state anything about her specific involvement in the compromise in terms of what positions she championed and why. Perhaps she fought against such provisions but was unable to overcome those in the majority who felt differently.