Judge Kessler Upholds the Health Care Reform Act

Judge Kessler

Dismissing as mere semantics the popular canard that failure to buy insurance is not an action and that inaction cannot be regulated by government, Judge Gladys Kessler, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, upheld the Affordable Care Act as a proper exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause.


The opinion is HERE

Government covers over half of health care costs

More than half of health care costs are borne by government

h/t Ezra Klein via  Paul Krugman  If we want to be more effective in health care delivery we need to use the biggest wedge: government expenditures and controls.  And BTW - caps on victims of medical malpractice is an unjust way to do it.  And turning medical malpractice adjudications over to "experts" like doctors is undemocratic and untrustworthy.  Obama ought to rethink that sop to the right.

A ‘Job-Killing’ Law? | FactCheck.org

House Republicans misrepresent the facts. Experts predict the health care law will have little effect on employment.

January 7, 2011

A ‘Job-Killing’ Law? | FactCheck.org

The Economists' Voice

The Economists' Voice is an electronic journal edited by progressive economists - including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.  Below is the ta ble of contents for the new issue on the health care reform act.

Health Care Reform

The Health Care Reform Legislation: An Overview

Chapin White

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) fundamentally shifts the social contract in the U.S., according to Chapin White of the Center for Studying Health System Change.
The Simple Economics of Health Reform

David M. Cutler

According to David Cutler of Harvard, a key player in crafting health care reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could turn out to be the most successful piece of health care legislation ever.
The Economics, Opportunities, and Challenges of Health Insurance Exchanges

Mark G. Duggan and Robert Kocher

Can the health insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act substantially improve the functioning and reach of the private health insurance market? They can if executed correctly, according to Mark Duggan of the University of Maryland and Robert Kocher of McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform, who point to new incentives for individuals, employers, and insurers.
Can the ACA Improve Population Health?

Dana P. Goldman and Darius N. Lakdawalla

Now that we have covered the uninsured, it is time for us to put the priority on health, not health insurance, according to Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman, both of the University of Southern California. The authors argue that benefits to population health are likely to be limited under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

America - Jesuit weekly faults bishops' conference on health care reform bill

Technicalities and hypotheticals weighed more than health care for all in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops analysis leading them to oppose passage of the health care reform bill last month, say the editors of America, the Jesuit weekly magazine in an editorial HERE. Thanks to ReligiousLefltlaw blog.  Fortunately Catholic legislators gave more weight to facts as did the nuns whose support was important to passage.
Image: Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI)

Health Care Reform Signing Ceremony

Medicare it ain't but it is the biggest progressive win since Reagan was elected

I remember the passage of Medicare.  I was in college and little concerned with public matters.  That would come with the draft and escalation of the war in Vietnam by Lyndon Baines Johnson.  Johnson was a great President who made a fatal error - inability to think his way out of war in Vietnam.  The civil rights bill, the War on Poverty, and Medicare were his great accomplishments.


Since Reagan principally, public debate has been dominated by the conservative attacks on "entitlements".  It wasn't always so: the Department now known as HHS (Health and Human Services( was then known as HEW (Health Education & Welfare).  This relentless ideological assault on the modest social democracy of the Democratic Party has shaped public debate - so that we end up with a private insurance program - rather than the expansion of Medicare and single-payer plan that I, like most progressives, would have preferred.  Important  as this is, it is not Social Security, not Medicare.  But it IS the biggest progressive victory in Congress since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.  And it is Obama's victory.  Gives us Hope.

Health Care Reform: Why this moment matters

Speaker Nancy Pelosi:  


Tonight we join those who passed Social Security and civil rights.  Now tonight health care for all Americans.  We would not be here without the extraordinary vision and leadership of President Barack Obama.


Rather than offer my own take, I will just provide a link to National Book Award winner James Fallows HERE.

Rahm Emanuel: architect of Democratic majority

There is a lot of criticism of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on the left.  He was too ready to compromise on comprehensive reform, sabotaged the public option, etc.  I am too far from the process to offer any fine-tuned criticisms.  But I am prepared to say that as former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he was an architect of the Red to Blue strategy which brought us centrist, anti-abortion, blue dog Democrats.  


One price of that is compromise that many of us would prefer to avoid.  But Emanuel's strategy's success was confirmed today when Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) today signed on with health care reform, based on the Executive Order putting the Hyde Amendment permanently into law unless withdrawn by a President or overridden by legislation.  


The gain is tremendous expansion of government responsibility for the cost of health care and the estimated 32 million  increase in the number of people in America with health insurance.  I would personally prefer a single payer or Canadian system, but to succeed in politics one needs to be able to count votes.  Rahm Emanuel knows how to count votes.

Catholic Health Association backs health care reform

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has finally tilted to urging a NO vote on the health care reform bill.


But the Catholic Health Association - organization of Catholic hospitals - is clear: "we have been trying to get this done since Teddy Roosevelt.  It is not pro-life when there are 9 million uninsured children".
Here is Sister Carol Keehan, CEO of the CHA interviewed by U.S. Catholic magazine.  No point in excerpting it.  THIS IS THE BEST PITCH I HAVE HEARD FOR THE REFORM BILL.

Similarities between Massachusetts and Congressional health reform plans

Scott Brown, Lindsey, Graham, and even Mit Romney are trying to distance the Democratic Congressional health reofrm plan from the Massachusetts plan: because Brown and Romney inconveniently supported both. the principal difference is the federal cuts from projected Medicare subsidies of health insurers expenses.  But that is a logical consequence of the big increase in premiums due to the individual mandate and the absence of a public option.  Thanks to The Wonk Room for the chart below, and Think Progress for the lead and analysis. The video is David Axelrod's rebuttal.

Major Provisions	Senate Bill	Massachusetts Bill
Individual Mandate	Yes	Yes
Employer Responsibility	Yes	Yes
Affordability Credits	Yes	Yes
Standard Benefit Package	Yes	Yes
Establishes Exchanges	Yes	Yes
Prohibits Insurance Company From Canceling Coverage	Yes	Yes
Bans Denying Medical Coverage For Pre-existing Conditions	Yes	Yes
Medicaid Expansion	Yes	Yes
Medicare Cuts	Yes	No Authority
Cap On High-Cost Plans	Yes	No

Obama "Now is the time to make a decision"

Concluding remarks:


So at stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. 


The American people want to know if it's still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. 


They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. 


And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it's right. 


And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.

Sen. Richard Durbin on Medical Malpractice Reform at the Healthcare Summit

There's no one who has said it better.  If you want to see the back-up for Sen. Durbin's  rebuttal of the urban legend The Medical Malpractice Myth, check out  UPenn Law Professor and insurance expert Tom Baker in his book of that name, published by University of Chicago Press.  Read an excerpt HERE

What it's all about: better health not consumer choice

Listening to GOP paeans to our health care system was annoying.  It was a relief to see this post by Yglesias.

There is little more dramatic than comparing the welfare of those who live in social democracies with those like us who live under the yoke of those who believe that government is best which governs least. 

It's not choice we are seeking to advance - it's health care.

The graph shows unmet care defined as “Did not get medical care, missed medical test, treatment or follow-up, did not fill prescription or missed doses.” It’s striking that not only does the US do much worse with regard to poor people, we do much worse than many countries with regard to richer than average people.

National Catholic Reporter: Health Care Bill Must Pass

Catholic swing voters, backed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have upped the ante on health care: not just neutrality but no complicity on abortion has become their demand.  I generally mistrust the "right to life" movement, seeing it as a wedge issue of the right - like the racism and militarism that have driven the post-Civil Rights sun belt Republican "southern strategy" the past 40 years.  But it is clearly more than that.  A religion with rituals of birth and resurrection at its center certainly will place life on the highest pedestal. 


So there has been a great tension among Catholics: can we advance health care and reduce abortion at the same time? 

The editors of National Catholic Reporter think so.  
The Health Care Bill Must Pass, they say.

TNR: Why the health care bill is the greatest social achievement of our time.

The New Republic

And the Rest Is Just Noise

Why the health care bill is the greatest social achievement of our time.

At some level, it is possible to understand the roots of liberal frustration. The machinery of Congress has ground away at the health care bill, as it does to almost any bill. But at a broader level, the liberal mood is insane. What has emerged from that machinery is not merely “better than nothing” or “a good start.” It is the most significant American legislative triumph in at least four decades. Why can so few people see that?

- Jonathan Chait

For his full reasoning click HERE.

Thanks for the tip to James Fallows. Embarrassing to admit, but James Fallows only grabbed my attention about a year ago. Better late than never. It was his analysis of the Democratic primary debates in The Atlantic that got my attention. Then I found his blog - and his observations during the last of this three years in China and I was hooked. No regrets.

John Podesta: Why I support the health care reform bill

John Podesta, Chief of Staff in the Clinton White House offers his support, differing with Howard Dean (who I trust will no longer head up the Democratic National Committee as soon as a sufficient jolt of electricity passes to his toilet seat). Appalling spasm of ultra-leftism that has the head of the party stabbing its Congressional leadership in the back.

Here is Podesta's analysis. Excerpts follow:

The Senate health care bill is not without its problems. But if enacted, it would represent the most significant public reform of our health care system that Congress has passed in the 40 plus years I have worked in politics. The bill will give health care coverage to a record 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured, lay a foundation that will begin to lower costs for millions of families, and provide all Americans with the access to adequate and dependable coverage when they need it most.

All of us are anxious to see the final language from the Senate. And a final bill must ensure that the subsidies provided are sufficient to make insurance truly affordable for working families. But based on what we know, here are my top ten reasons for why progressives should support the Senate passing the bill:

1. Largest Expansion Of Coverage Since Medicare’s Creation: Thirty-one million previously uninsured Americans will have insurance.

2. Low/Middle Income Americans Will Not Go Without Coverage: For low-income Americans struggling near the poverty line, the bill represents the largest single expansion of Medicaid since its inception. Combined with subsidies for middle income families, the bill’s provisions will ensure that working class Americans will no longer go without basic health care coverage.

Image: John Podesta and Howard Dean in happier days.