Brian Beutler quotes HCAN's pan of BaucusCare:

"The Baucus bill is a gift to the insurance industry that fails to meet the most basic promise of health care reform: a guarantee that Americans will have good health care that they can afford," says HCAN's campaign director Richard Kirsch.

The Baucus bill would give a government-subsidized monopoly to the private insurance industry to sell their most profitable plans - high-deductible insurance - without having to face competition from a public health insurer. [. . .] We urge Senators on the Finance Committee to replace the Baucus plan with legislation that will do what the Senate HELP Committee and three House committees have done: guarantee that Americans have good health insurance that they can afford with the choice of a strong national public health insurance option.

Consider HCAN the anti-Ezra.

Speaking for me only

On what has become the signature issue of the first year of his Presidency, health care reform, What Obama Really Meant with his theory of change will likely be answered. From my December 2007 post, E.J. Dionne:

Clinton[] claims that her experience readies her for the coming battles for change that all Democrats devoutly wish to wage. . . . The Edwards campaign is . . . appealing to the many Democrats who are in a fighting mood.

But Obama is running as the candidate who can transcend these fights. . . . Clearly but obliquely referring to Edwards, Obama preached that anger won't cut it, either. "There's no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there," he said. "We can change the electoral math that's been all about division and make it about addition."

(Emphasis supplied.) What about the policy math Mr. President? The Fix writes:

Ezra focuses on the exchange provision:

Color me impressed. I've argued before that the Health Insurance Exchanges are the most important piece of health-care reform, and they're being unacceptably weakened and constrained. The House bill, for instance, specifically allows businesses with only 20 or fewer people to join.

[. . . BaucusCare call for that], by 2022, the Health Insurance Exchanges will be open to all businesses of all sizes. That's a huge deal. And the first place where I've seen the Baucus bill go substantially further than the other bills.

Color me unimpressed. Ezra's argument for thinking exchanges are the biggest thing:

Viewable here (PDF). Here's the part that I focused on:

Excise Tax. The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax. If a taxpayer‘s MAGI [Adjusted Gross Income] is between 100-300 percent of FPL [Federal Poverty Level], the excise tax for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or an individual claimed as a dependent) is $750 per year. However, the maximum penalty for the taxpayer unit is $1,500. If a taxpayer‘s MAGI is above 300 percent of FPL the penalty for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or as an individual claimed as a dependent) is $950 year. However, the maximum penalty amount a family above 300 percent of FPL would pay is $3,800.

[More . . .

MoBlue points out this quote reported by ABC:

As one top Democrat told me, the fundamental problem [with Baucuscare] is that Democrats “are being asked to support a bipartisan bill that doesn’t have bipartisan support.” The compromise without the cover.

Indeed. And Obama wants this? Really? Nuts.

Speaking for me only

Think Progress:

Wendell Potter:

A public option must be created to provide true choice to consumers or reform will fail to fix the root of the severe problems that have been caused in large part by the greedy demands of Wall Street. By creating a strong public option and restricting the insurance companies’ ability to enrich executives and investors at the expense of taxpayers and consumers, HR 3200 [the House health bill] will truly benefit Americans. [. . .] The Baucus plan, on the other hand, would create a government subsidized monopoly for the purchase of bare bones high deductible policies that would truly benefit big insurance. In other words, insurers would win, your constituents would lose.”

mcjoan:

Before the plan was even officially released, Republicans complained about it. [. . .] If Republicans on Finance are displeased with the bill, Dems--who have been essentially shut out of the entire process (Baucus debacle member Kent Conrad is hardly representative of his colleagues, and Jeff Bingaman has been all but invisible)-- don't like it much better.

. . . [T]he White House [. . .] line:

President Obama has broadly endorsed many elements of Mr. Baucus’s proposal, which White House officials praise as a possible template for comprehensive health legislation, Mr. Obama’s top domestic priority.

BaucusCare will become ObamaCare? Time will tell.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias:

I’ve got a Daily Beast column noting that saving the public option wouldn’t resolve the biggest problem with Max Baucus’ health care plan—it just doesn’t offer enough financial help.

The problem with this analysis is not understanding the connection between the weak political bargaining on the pubic option urged by Yglesias and the weak political bargaining sure to follow on health care subsidies.

In other words, Yglesias demonstrates his sociopathic indifference on health care reform when he insists on better subsidies for health care. Why let the "better" be the enemy of the "not as better?" We can play this game right down to the end when all health care reform ends up being is mandates. How a smart person could not see this is beyond me.

Speaking for me only

Late in the day on HCR for creative thinking, but Ezra Klein writes:

This, from a smart reader, seems like a better compromise than a "trigger":

Maybe we should be allowing states to choose if they bring in a public option themselves? At least we can get CA, NY, and many of the big pieces into play and see how it works. That seems far better than giving up the whole pie, as they seem intent on doing.

. . . This would be particularly true if states could choose whether or not to tie their public option to Medicare rates, thus creating an insurance alternative that would actually work to provide savings. . . .

If you allowed states to band together in "public option co-ops" and only imposed an individual mandate in states with public options, you would have my support, FWTW (nothing.) This way, the red states could be happy with lousy health care and blue states could be happy with real health care reform. Of course, that's abandoning a lot of Dems in red states (and a lot of Progressive Caucus members hail from some of those states, CBC members especially.) They'll rightly protest. But "incrementalism" is the watchword right?

Speaking for me only

Greg Sargent and Matt Yglesias appear to fundamentally misunderstand the dynamics of midterm elections. While Sargent and Yglesias trumpet the fact that the GOP is polling badly, they misunderstand that the GOP is fired up and Dem plans to jettison a public option will demoralize the Dem base. More than any other, midterm elections are determined by the respective bases. This year, the GOP has Obama to fire up their base while democrats do not have Bush to fire up theirs.

Couple that with the fact that Obama and Dems are not doing well with seniors (maybe Hillary should have pointed out that that problem would come home to roost in 2010) and that the Emerging Dem/Obama Majority of 2008 are not reliable voters, then it is clear that Dems are in a world of trouble in 2010 IF they can not energize their base. The public option would do that. A booming economy would too. Is either likely at this point? Time will tell. More . . .

Beltway insider Mike Lux:

[T]here is still one counterweight that might save the day, the same counterweight that progressives have been hoping will stand strong since this debate started: progressives in the House. . . . What progressives in the House have to do is hold strong and hold together. Negotiating as a block of 60 members makes you a thousand times stronger then letting yourself get picked off one by one by one. If progressives hold strong and hold together, we can still get comprehensive reform with a decent public option. If they don't, the all-important details of this legislation will get worse and worse.

This is what it was always going to come down to: how much courage and moxie House progressives would have in the final negotiations on this bill. The end game has arrived. It is time to stand and deliver.

If they do not hold strong, the Progressive Caucus may as well shut down. No one will ever listen to them again.

Speaking for me only

Brian Beutler:

According to the New York Times, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America will spend $150 million specifically boosting for the health care reform proposal introduced last week by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). PhRMA has already spent millions on ads supporting the idea of reform more generically. But now that Baucus has come forward with an industry friendly proposal of his own--one that's significantly less progressive than the other proposals in Congress--PhRMA's throwing it's weight specifically behind his plan.

I'm old enough to remember when candidate Obama railed against special interests and taking lobbyist money. Those were the days . . .

Speaking for me only