Monday, September 28, 2009
By the Way / Congress / Politics Call It What You Want: Here's What Jim Cooper Supports
Posted by Liz Garrigan on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Comments (24)
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that's a nifty powerpoint presentation.
does this now mean that liz is officially back? can the scene get any worse?
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This is absolutely great. Thanks for pointing out. And welcome back. Hey airplane -- thank you for reaching out. Just for commenting, your next issue is free.
Thanks, Trent and Nicki. Meanwhile, "I typed airplane," you can relax. My Pith contributions will be only very occasional. Like when people are arguing breathlessly about whether the sky is blue without bothering to look out the window and see for themselves.
Its all well and good to know what Cooper would support in a perfect world, but the legislative process is not perfect. There is no evidence that HAA is going to be seriously considered, so the question will fall to what is he going to do about the bills that make it to the floor. Will he offer constructive criticism and help move that bill along, or will he simply stand there with his arms folded pointing at Wyden-Bennett?
I don't really like the mandated plan concept. Car insurance is optional because driving is still optional.
I do like what he suggests about regional cooperatives in order to achieve greater individual purchasing power. Yet, I am unclear about any advantage to having Washington administer this or any program with a chance of meeting its stated goals.
In fact, just the suggestion of Congressional involvement is a huge liability in the eyes of at least 40% of the population, perhaps significantly more than that. The government that governs least governs best.
He speaks of portability, but does this apply when one crosses the state line? Presently, state insurance regulations contribute significantly to our systemic problems, and insurers do not seem to mind continuing to encourage lawmakers to deny leverage to potentially massive, risk groups for fear of lost profits.
I must give Rep Cooper some credit. He seems to be working hard on an alternative. I have been especially hard on him relative to his plan to tax employee benefits. Of course, by quantifying what were formerly benefits as income, he achieves the same purpose.
This makes my next point even more salient. Even though I believe Rep Cooper earnestly wishes to provide a solution, the credibility of the federal government in administering any program, much less one that affects our very well-being as individuals or as a society at large, is shot.
Whereas Republicans have often made bad decisions on various issues, few if any of them have seemed so intentionally destructive or ultimately bent on some grand scheme of subverting the founding principles of this nation.
Our discredited, neocon, foreign policy is the closest thing I can think of which we have done to approach the threshold of damage I describe. The inter-party smack downs have only just begun where that issue is concerned. Believe me. I am out there every day listening to the voices of the rank-and-file GOP voter.
On the other hand, the mainstream of the Democrat leadership, particularly this administration, has squandered any perceived mandate for change IN RECORD TIME through repeated deception and incompetence. In other words, at this point, unless it is somehow procedurally forced, it is just not going to happen and neither is cap-and-trade.
No one on earth or in all of human history has the slightest proof that the sky is blue.
/Gilbert Martin
Sean, unfortunately for all of us, not everyone is as thoughtful or knowledgeable as you are. I think that so much of the angst about Cooper is far more fundamental and tied up in semantics.
I don't have the energy left on this Monday to join this debate, but I did want to say hello and welcome back to Liz. I have missed you!
I will just say though that Mr. Cooper has proven to me by his actions that he is more of a politician than a policy maker.
Sean, I thought the "primary Cooper" criticism was that he was an unprincipled shill for Big Insurance; now you're saying he's not pragmatic enough?
Meanwhile, Obama is telling Congress that the public option is "a means to an end" whose "impact should not be exaggerated." And it "should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles."
What's a Congressman to do?
So for years Jim has this bill, along with Sen. Ron Wyden (liberal D-OR) and a bipartisan group, and the bill is actually a lot more reformist than the nonthreatening-to-all plans being talked about in Washington these days. And Jim says things like:
"...because so many insurance companies today, they don't want to serve everybody; they only want healthy young people. And as soon as you get sick or injured, they want to drop you like a hot rock."
"Time is wasting. Every second, every day we wait, every tick of the clock, we lose a chance to fundamentally reform health care insurance in our country."
My question is, if that's how a shill for the insurance industry talks, as Daily Kos insists, what do their critics say? Or maybe Jim was just saying one thing to YouTube users and another thing to Vimeo viewers?
Then again, last week Daily Kos accused Cooper of participating in a crooked land deal. Oops! Wrong congressman! I guess it's hard for the out-of-towners to keep us hillbillies straight.
Full disclosure for folks who don't know: I used to work for both Jim and the Scene, so I'm hopelessly compromised and glad to have Liz back.
I always have liked hopelessly compromised folks and hope someday they run for a public office. It's a natural calling for the HC.
"Car insurance is optional because driving is still optional."
Thank you. I don't understand why people can't see what a crappy analogy that is.
Hello? Public transportation?
Mary,
Then try this.
Driving a car is a priviledge. Even if it were a Right, which it isn't, sensible public policy can justify requiring insurance because a driver's actions can impact (so to speak) others.
To suggest that the state can require someone to purchase health insurance on a similar principle is the crappy analogy.
If a driver who loses control of his car while texting and hits another car, the damage done to others is obvious. To expand that logic to justify mandating individuals to buy health care on the grounds that not doing so harms others is absurd.
Where do you want to limit that principle? What is left to the individual that you do not think that the society can control?
To suggest that the state can require someone to purchase health insurance on a similar principle is the crappy analogy.
What the state can and should require people to do is participate in the collective enterprise of a risk pool. This has been the animating principle behind Medicare and Social Security for generations. For that participation to resemble a retail purchase of insurance is but one somewhat arbitrary way of implementing the requirement, and it may well not be the best way. (Single payer advocates would certainly say it isn't.)
Mr. Rogers may prefer a society without collectively enacted forms of social insurance that cover retirement income and health care, and he is free to advocate politically for such a society (or perhaps relocate to one). However, based on the actions of most advanced democracies and their superior performance on a number of markers of public health and medical outcomes, it is certainly the case that a well-functioning modern state can enact public policy that requires participation in risks pools and social insurance.
"However, based on the actions of most advanced democracies and their superior performance on a number of markers of public health and medical outcomes, it is certainly the case that a well-functioning modern state can enact public policy that requires participation in risks pools and social insurance."
1. There are some differences between nations in the way medical statistics are calculated/recorded so there isn't a direct apples to apples comparison between the U.S. and other countries.
2. Medical outcomes also depend on other environmental factors that have nothing to do with the national medical system itself.
3. It is not a fact that increasing the performance of medical outcomes is is of higher value than maintaining maximum individual freedom. The relative value of one outcome vs another is stricly a matter of personal opinion - not established fact.
4. Not a single one of those other "advanced democracies" would be an independent nation state today if they had not been getting a free ride off of United States military protection ever since World War II. They would never had been able to afford any of their social welfare programs if they had been required to fully provide for their own defense.
It's interesting that Spragens, Garrigan, and the rest (Woods, Brown, ACK, SoBeale) are up in arms about the very IDEA of a primary challenge, and not addressing the specific ISSUES that Accountability Now has raised. Cooper voted for invading Iraq but voted against the stimulus bill because "we don't have enough money". Cooper serves on the Armed Services committee and the Oversight committee and yet seems to be castrated when it comes to providing oversight for our Armed Services. Cooper talks about fiscal discipline out of one side of his mouth and then votes to authorize debt-based war funding. He has a poll where 77% of Democrats disapprove of his handling of the healthcare issue, then says "I listen to my constituents, not outsiders". Cooper is stuck in the Green Hills bubble and doesn't recognize what's going on in North Nashville, Antioch, etc. He takes a ton of money from groups outside Nashville. And folks who live and work in Washington acknowledge that Cooper spends time palling around with lobbyists. Meanwhile, he is probably the most anti-union member of Congress and the best friend of the NFIB in Washington. By doing this, he's alienating himself from his base.
Now ... having said all that, I love Jim Cooper personally. I'm not a union member, a minority, or a woman. I didn't support Hillary Clinton in 2008. And I think people from Green Hills are my kind of people. So this isn't about me. But he's tone deaf if he thinks that Democrats are generally satisfied with his job performance.
And the HAA kills unions, hurts the poor, doesn't include a public option, is regressive, contains mandates without any collective bargaining power to negotiate rates. Moreover, it subsidizes the same for-profit insurance companies who have doubled their premiums over the past 10 years. In short, it's not a good idea unless you're in the healthcare industry, you're wealthy, you're self-employed, or you're interested in policies that hurt poor people.
John,
I'm not entirely sure what the national argument against Jim Cooper is...personally, I'm not for or against him at this point, but I love a good political fight, and seeing as a Republican can't win except Bellevue, perhaps a primary is the best we can hope for :-)
Otherwise, for me, it is a practical matter. I support quite a bit of what the HAA does, and with a few tweaks, I think a good number of Democrats would too. Problem is, once you tweak it even a little bit in favor of what the majority of Congress wants, you lose a good deal of Republicans who don't want to be seen compromising with the Democrats.
Mr. Barry,
"However, based on the actions of most advanced democracies and their superior performance on a number of markers of public health and medical outcomes, it is certainly the case that a well-functioning modern state can enact public policy that requires participation in risks pools and social insurance."
Which explains all those Americans lining up for citizenship in the Utopias of France, England, Norway etc.
And where do these superior performers figure into the development of new treatments and new technologies in comparison to the cruel and capitalist United Sttes?
I actually have no problem with taxing people to provide components of health care and retirement but do you think tht the power to force me into a risk pool for myself isn't going to lead to mandatory check-ups and then mandatory health targets and such?
Also your attachment for Social Security and Medicare in the present demonstrates the greatest danger of greater federal control of health care.
Social Security as it operates is no longer able to provide poor retirees with a decent living because the Ponzi-like format prevents contributions from generating any returns of note.
Medicare is inherently fraught with massive levels of fraud, something you leftists refused to acknowledge until President Obama needed to find some 'savings' to fund his health care plan. Then, mirable dictu, the Left is talking about saving hundreds of billions of dollars. Where was this fiscal prudence over the last forty years?
So please do not try and stereotype me as one of your Conservative strawmen. Your arguments are positively quadrophonic in their echo and their 'technology.'
"Which explains all those Americans lining up for citizenship in the Utopias of France, England, Norway etc."
LOL
Yeah and in the Canadian "utopia" they are running down here to get medical treatment and doctors are setting up alternative fee for service practices in some of the provinces so people can actually get the treatment they need and want when they want it.
I would be in favor of a co-op if it were possible to bar people who abuse their health, such as smokers, drinkers, buffet pigs, et al. Responsible people could have truly affordable world-class health care, and the rest would live with the consequences of their actions, and the misfortune of their genetic heritage, meaning higher premiums.
With the advent of genetic testing, comprehensive preventive medicine is now possible. Dr. Asa says 80% of all disease is preventable. I don't know about you, but I would love to put a bunch of doctors out of business. The philosophy of diet, exercise, and stress management is the health care of the 21st century.
The 2006-2007 studies of Medicare fraud, abuse, doctor shopping, and superfluous testing that Obama cites leads to one conclusion: Government cannot run anything that complex as efficiently as a free-market enterprise. You try to help people, but it just feeds criminal activity, so we need another way. Privitization is a damn good idea!
