The Chris Moeller Archives

Is this what we were promised?

The Des Moines Register headline online today reads "House passes less controversial health-reform bill", but I gather that depends on how one chooses to measure controversy. A scaled-back health care bill passed the House today 91-3, a vote that, mathematically, is certainly on the low end of a sliding scale of "controversy," but considering that polls show roughly two-thirds of Americans believe government should guarantee health insurance and that 90 percent believe the current health-care system needs either fundamental change or to be entirely rebuilt, the case could probably be made that the changes in the House, from the originally proposed bill to the one that passed today-- changes that maintain more of the status quo-- will wind up being more "controversial."

Many of the details of today's bill are not yet known, at least to me. The rush to vote didn't even allow paper copies of the bill to be given to House members, but we know this much from the Register's stellar reportage:

1) The new bill was written in private, and the vote was hurried, but Rep. Mark Smith had time to meet with private interest groups, including private insurers, to a point where he felt afterwards as if he "could give a master's thesis on (the) legislation."

2) Insurance and business lobbyists were able to get more concessions from Democratic leaders, by those leaders' own public acknowledgement, allowing more of these corporate predators to keep their greedy, grimy hands on our human right to health care coverage.

3) Though we were promised less bureaucracy with the late-session changes, a nine-member "work group" panel has still been set up that will include a place at the table for private business and insurance interests.

4) The revised bill excluded limits being placed on the gifts that physicians and health care providers can accept from representatives of drug companies.

5) Even though almost every Democratic member of the Iowa House ran an election campaign last fall promising health care coverage for all children in the state, the bill that came out of their chamber today, during what's expected to be the last week of the session, with the Democrats in the majority, provides no money to that end.

posted by CM @ 12:42 PM