The health care reform bill passed the House and was signed into law by President Barack Obama this morning. There is much background news, ups and downs, the determination of some and display of ugliness by others in the run up to this historic event. Here are some of the principle features of the bill and how it came to pass.
The short and long term implications the bill:
THIS YEAR
_ Sets up a high-risk health insurance pool to provide affordable coverage for uninsured people with medical problems.
_ Starting six months after enactment, requires all health insurance plans to maintain dependent coverage for children until they turn 26.
_ For children with medical problems, prohibits insurers from writing a policy that excludes payment for the particular condition. Insurers in the individual market could still deny new coverage to children in poor health.
_ Bars insurance companies from putting lifetime dollar limits on coverage, and canceling policies except for fraud.
_ Provides tax credits to help small businesses with up to 25 employees get and keep coverage for their employees.
_ Begins narrowing the Medicare prescription coverage gap by providing a $250 rebate to seniors in the gap, which starts this year once they have spent $2,830. It would be fully closed by 2020.
_ Reduces projected Medicare payments to hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, hospices and other providers.
_ Imposes 10 percent sales tax on indoor tanning. (The rest here)
Mommy Care, not Kiddie Care : Speaker Nancy Pelosi's role in the health care overhaul:
WASHINGTON – The landmark health care bill about to be signed into law is as large as it is due in no small part to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's stewardship. When Democrats in Congress and the White House were despondent and inclined to retreat on health care just two months ago, Pelosi stood firm against despair and downsizing.
As a result, she could emerge from the yearlong struggle among the most powerful speakers in history...
"'We are not kicking this can down the road,'" Pelosi told Obama by phone last month just before their seven-hour televised health care conference, according to Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York and three other officials who heard the call.
It was an abrupt reminder to those on the White House end of the line: Whatever is said at the big bipartisan meeting, there would be no substantive rewrite of the bill as Republicans were demanding. Obama said he understood and agreed: They were moving in one direction only, toward passage. And soon....
When Democrats panicked after Republican Scott Brown won Edward Kennedy's Senate seat, Pelosi rebuffed feelers by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and others for a smaller version of the bill. She dismissed that approach as incrementalism and derisively dubbed it, "kiddie care."
The bitter reaction of the "Just Say No" Republicans:
As jubilant Democrats prepared for President Obama to sign their landmark health care legislation in a big ceremony at the White House, Republicans opened a campaign on Monday to repeal the legislation and to use it as a weapon in this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.
“We will not allow this to stand,” Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, promised Monday afternoon as the House reconvened, a day after the bitterly partisan vote. ...
Around the country, reaction to the bill’s passage was emotional, and in some cases violent.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, said her Tucson office was vandalized after her vote in support of the measure. A glass door was shattered, she said.
After a weekend when protesters outside the Capitol subjected some Democratic lawmakers to racial slurs and other epithets, Representative Randy Neugebauer, a conservative Republican from Texas, revealed on Monday that he was the lawmaker who shouted “baby killer” on the House floor Sunday night as Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, discussed abortion-related provisions in the health care bill.
In a statement, Mr. Neugebauer, a three-term member of the House from Lubbock, said he got caught up in the passions of the moment and was not referring to Mr. Stupak personally but to the bill itself.
“In the heat and emotion of the debate, I exclaimed the phrase ‘it’s a baby killer’ in reference to the agreement reached by the Democratic leadership,” Mr. Neugebauer said. “I deeply regret that my actions were mistakenly interpreted as a direct reference to Congressman Stupak himself.” (But he is now raising money based on the same outburst)
Well at least someone knows what happened! It was bound to be Ruchira!!! I'm forwarding this link around for all of us who are still wondering wtf.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | March 24, 2010 at 10:16 AM
this has been a real bit of ugliness, this whole ordeal. very glad it passed, just so that obama can be in more of an offensive mode during the next election...whether the reform is popular or not, he owns it and can now say "here are the benefits, here's why it was necessary". had it failed, he would have been in a purely defensive position...he would have been campaigning with no real policies to rally around..."republicans got in the way" would have made for a miserable angle.
also, it puts republicans in the posistion of having had no involvement with a major reform. a weaker position, no matter how much weirdo paranoia they try to build up around the issue. "it's a government take over!" they'll take the paranoia into overdrive now, it's the only card they have left...and they might very well succeed with it...but they'll do so against an administration that has achieved something, established at least some modicum of "success" (that is, they passed this bill; when it comes to defining "success" for democrats, i'm setting the bar really low).
Posted by: M | March 24, 2010 at 12:58 PM
Okay, I'm officially an Obama (and Pelosi) fan-boy. Gallup has a heartening poll:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126929/Slim-Margin-Americans-Support-Healthcare-Bill-Passage.aspx
Posted by: prasad | March 24, 2010 at 01:22 PM
Neugebauer may have his '15 minutes of fame' like Joe Wilson, but I suspect that it's the signs of what may end up being the splitting of the Republican party, moderates in one faction (Let's call it GOP(M), just like the Indian National Congress split into Cong(I), Cong(S)...Cong(Z))
The other will be GOP(BT) - not Bacillus Thuringensis, though the combination may as well be as strange a genetically modified organism, but Birther-Teabagger..er Birther-Teapartier.
I'm guessing Palin, Wilson, Neugebauer, Bachman et al. will be in the BT wing, while Frum, Romney, Cornyn, et al. will be stuck in the M wing, not having made the cut. McCain will be in Limboland.
Predictions aside, I had the strangest feeling that HCR would eventually pass, no matter how many times it had been declared dead in various media. It may have ambled through the gates like a zombie, but it can't be killed, just like one.
Posted by: Sujatha | March 24, 2010 at 03:28 PM
Sujatha: Great analogy of the unkillable zombie. The good thing is that the Dems are no longer behaving like one. There is definitely a spring in their step and they seem to be standing up straighter.
Matt, the GOP paranoia is not quite done. They are still trying to outdo one another in repugnanat and sometimes ludicrous rhetoric. One GOP candidate in NY compared the Health Care legislation to the 9/11 catastrophe. Granted this one's trying to win an election. The elected Repugs are not too far behind.
Prasad, the polls are only going to get more favorable as people digest the facts and implications of the bill. Only the cut off one's nose to spite one's face variety of right wingers who want Obama to fail above all, will still be harping on the evils of the bill. Any halfway decent and honest citizen will not like to revert to the "pre-existing condition" of the US health care system.
Posted by: Ruchira | March 24, 2010 at 03:55 PM
"the GOP paranoia is not quite done."
as bad as the conspiracy theories have been, i think they're just getting started. leading up to the next presidential election, all of the anti-obama paranoia will bleed together into larger, more insane paranoia.
it's been scattered up till now...obama has a fake birth certificate...he's a secret muslim...or, umm, a marxist!
obama put his reputation on the line with this health care debate...the republican strategy was to sink his agenda, leave him with little to promote...and now that it's passed, they've lost their primary target. saying "the bill that passed was a mistake" is a weak, defensive position...they'll definitely say that, but now they have to re-group around a new strategy, and the consipiracy theories are going to take center stage. now that the "health care reform = government take over" rhetoric has failed, they have to go further, conjure larger boogie men. the combination that is happening right now: republicans both out of power and failing to torpedo a major democratic policy...it's a perfect storm for paranoia and conspiracies. that's the republican blueprint for the next few years. they're about to roll out crazy on a whole new scale.
Posted by: M | March 24, 2010 at 05:32 PM
M, was that a 'secret muslin' or should it have been a 'secret madras'? I think they have their fabric categories messed up.
Posted by: Sujatha | March 25, 2010 at 05:52 AM
just as long as he's not secret velco or pleather. those are the worst.
Posted by: M | March 25, 2010 at 08:35 AM
The proposed The Health Care Reform is not necessary and may well be very harmful to the U.S.There is a large set of means to fix the U.S. Healthcare System. Following the socialist model is not the answer. Hear the truth about the
Posted by: Healthcare Reform | May 03, 2010 at 12:36 PM