Because the most important insurance reforms are the exchanges and public option. We are in fact doing insurance reform first, and the current bill is the form that reform is taking.
It works backwards.
The party doing the filibustering needs to keep a couple of members on the floor. The party being filibustered needs to keep a quorum on the floor at all times. Otherwise the session is over and no need for a filibuster.
So it’s a lot easier on the filibusterers than on the filibusterees. That’s why you have the modern procedural filibuster. The party being filibustered prefers it that way.
If it gets 60 votes, it will be through added pork as a payoff to individual senators to get their vote. I will bet any amount of money that at least 2 billion dollars will be added to the bill as pork payoff amendments.
So does that mean that McCain is going to vote for it so the pork isn’t necessary? Since cutting pork is the absolute, no questions asked, number one priority for the government, after all.
No, not every insurance reform leads to higher premiums, though obviously forcing insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions will likely have that result. If the reforms that will lead to lower premiums (e.g. insurance mandate) are coupled with others, it might be a net zero.
I believe that was in response to Smitty’s comment: “If it gets 60 votes, it will be through added pork as a payoff to individual senators to get their vote. I will bet any amount of money that at least 2 billion dollars will be added to the bill as pork payoff amendments.”
If so, then at the risk of being whooshed I think a slightly fairer reading would be that (a) McCain doesn’t believe the bill should pass, and (b) if Smitty is right, then such a bill couldn’t pass but for all the costly pork – thus making it an example of McCain’s point: bills that shouldn’t pass are passing because of pork, which is why “cutting pork” is the number one priority, since it can work that same magic on legislation affecting patent law or military affairs or farm policy and et cetera across the board – all while wasting money as a side effect every time, since each piece of said pork presumably couldn’t get approved on its own merits.
No, not every insurance reform leads to higher premiums, though obviously forcing insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions will likely have that result. If the reforms that will lead to lower premiums (e.g. insurance mandate) are coupled with others, it might be a net zero.
An individual mandate also raises premiums for the very healthy, the folks who wouldn’t normally buy insurance.
It’s also a dumb idea, like trying to solve the homeless problem by fining people without homes.
Such measured comments on the board these days :rolleyes:
Compromise to get to 51+ is the likely option.
What kind of compromise? There aren’t 60 votes for a public option and there aren’t 60 votes for a plan without one.
And a public option can’t get through reconciliation because of the rules. Only certain things can go through reconciliation.
So the only “compromise” possible is one with no public option. Which might be why professional betters on Intrade rate the likelihood of a public option passing as 2.9%.
The mandate/public option should go as a package deal. It’d be unthinkable to force people to buy insurance then not also include your #1 way of keeping the cost of it down. Sure you’ll probably have free riders, but we pay for them anyway NOW.
I agree that without a public option a mandate is completely unacceptable. But the public option isn’t going to happen. So shouldn’t the mandate be dropped too?
If the PO is dropped, absolutely.
I’m very healthy, and I buy insurance. I think what you meant is that it would raise premiums on free riders who don’t buy it but who then end up in the ER asking for our charity. And while they have no premium to raise or lower, they do have a “premium” - what we pay for their healthcare - which would be lowered by requiring them to buy insurance.
But we’re talking politics, not policy. Your question is how they get to 60. The simple answer is that they drop the public option and a few more Senators hop on board.
I’m not disputing that, but do we have any hard numbers? It seems to me that the hypothetical healthy 25 year old with access to health insurance, who simply chooses not to purchase it is a very, very small number in comparison to the people with pre-existing conditions that cannot get a private policy.
To me, it would be analogous to mandating that auto insurance companies write policies to anyone regardless of driving history. The neighbor with 4 DUIs has a right to the same auto rate as you. And car insurance is mandatory, but you could “opt out” if you lived in an urban area and/or didn’t drive a car. There is no “opt out” in the health plan.
Does anyone dispute that such a policy would cause an enormous increase in auto insurance rates? So, now that I can’t pay my premiums, I would be forced to pay a fine?
I know, the premiums would be affordable because of the public option, but that seems like a three card monty trick.
Is it even in dispute that almost all of the 85+ percent of people with health insurance today will be paying more under any version of this plan? Not a snark, but it seems like plain common sense to me.
Actually, I’ve looked at the charts on the subsidies. They would not be affordable to many families.
I think it’s a really bad idea for the government to tell people that they’d better pay their health insurance bill before their rent or mortgage under threat of legal sanctions.
jtgain: Mandates aren’t the only cost control measure though. There are dozens of others. Whether they fully offset the cost increases depends on hundreds of variables and suppositions (on both sides of the ledger). There’s a good article on the cost controls that I’ll try to remember to post when I’m not posting from my phone.
It is absolutely true that coverage for preexisting conditions is irrational. But most of our system is irrational, ad hoc, and often the worst of both worlds in terms of markets and government control. What we call health insurance is anything but. So while coverage for preexisting conditions makes no sense in terms of insurance, you have to ask whether it is an improvement on the actual reality, not the principles that we falsely pretend underly that reality. In that perspective, it probably is given that the market for healthcare and health insurance is it’s own rabbit hole.