Teddy Kennedy is getting involved in the health care negotiations. (Thanks to Andy for the catch.) This was what John McDonough suggested a few days ago, and I reiterated this morning.
Teddy’s apparently telling everyone to cool it with the smack talk. Actually, I think a little public spat like this can help the pols get some public and press feedback. But now it’s time to swallow hard and get a deal.
This is something that conservative folks who only know the Teddy Kennedy caricature don’t understand: He’s a dealmaker. (Who knows how No Child Left Behind would have gone, had it been adequately funded?)
And Deval Patrick somehow finds his way onto the AP article:
Deval Patrick, a former Clinton administration official seeking this year’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination, similarly urged negotiators to drop the inflammatory language. Patrick supports DiMasi’s plan.
“The cost of health insurance is on everyone’s minds,” Patrick said in a statement. “Why not add measures to get costs down for everyone? With those savings, no reasonable business could complain about a modest assessment on those companies that can provide insurance to their employees but don’t.”
Well someone was ready with a quote. Tom Reilly, you out there? Got anything to say about this important matter? Chris Gabrieli?
Bueller? … Bueller? … Bueller?
to get his name out there anyway he can. In addition to raising taxes he believes that employers should pay another burdensome tax by mandatory health insurance payments. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck its still a tax Deval.
Swallowed the rhetoric hook, line, and stupid.
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Like the Free Care assessment on good employers isn’t a tax. Right.
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Obviously clueless.
Remember the rules. If you have some specific point to make, please provide reasoned arguments and link to your sources. Calling people “stupid” and “clueless” is actually a sign of weakness in one’s own argument.
My sense is that this “tax phobia” indicated by your “quacks like a duck” rhetoric, rightmiddleleft, will lead to political paralysis. This is the way I see it: Government is paying for people who use the free care pool. That costs us, the taxpayers, money. If we have a health care system that depends on employers to provide health insurance to their employees, I think it’s reasonable to use a tax as a way of recouping expenses from businesses who don’t provide health insurance to their employees and whose employees then use the free care pool and cost us money. That seems like a free ride to me, on my dime.
What’s your solution to getting people insured? Lots of businesses pay for their employees’ health care; some don’t, and expect the rest of us to foot the bill, to the tune of $213 million+. So you think that’s perfectly OK?
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Sounds like a lame duck to me.
Deval for getting out there, but I think what “rightmiddleleft” was trying to say was, If you going to get out there, and add your voice to the chorus, why throw in the least attractive part of the plan, why not say something along the lines of,
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“I’m proud to reiterate my desire, and now the stated desire of our Commonwealth’s senior Senator and a leader on this cause, that the House and Senate move quickly and thoughtfully to expand health insurnace coverage throughout Massachusetts. This issue is too important to fall prey to politics as usual and I would hope that Speaker DiMasi and President Traviligni recognize it as such.”
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In other words, why mention the tax? And why not take a swing at Beacon Hill while you’re at it (Dems are fooling themselves if they think they can win without running against the Legislature and win).
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There’s a time for policy and a time for politics.
that employess has the choice of either working for that particular company or working for someone else. Let the free market decide if companies who do not have health care can attract the best employees.
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I know from experience that the labor market requires my company to have health coverage to attract those quality employees necessary to provide the skills that my company demands. If I don’t provide healthcare to applicants in a formal plan it is provided as an increase in wages or other renumeration. If I don’t pay the price I will lose that employee. But, whatever it takes to makes it happen, it is the free market that controls my decision not the government.
reliance on the free market to sole all our woes has left 44 million people nation wide uninsured and nearly the same level in poverty. Working in tandem, doing what they each do best, the public sector and the private sector can form a dynamic alliance to help move our commonwealth and this nation forward together again.
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We need to get beyond public vs. private, more vs. less, and all the other classic dichotomies we get into.
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Here’s our chance, so lets go for it.
Truly clueless.
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The free market is a myth, by the way. You might want to rethink your underlying premises. It would take me a few paragraphs to explain it but I’m sure if you think hard enough you can come up with why.
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And pressure on employees, especially in an economic downturn, means that your “free market” model, even if it worked at all, only works some of the time, therefore it’s a sucky model.
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Obviously you have no idea what it’s like to be at the bottom end of the spectrum working for minimum wage or such jobs as one can find like retail or food service. Obviously you have an education and yes, some companies compete for your employment. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not the case in every field.
There are a number of possible solutions to this issue. Simply slamming people who don’t agree with the “employer pays” solutions is not constructive. Personally, I think this proposal may win a battle but weaken our campaign in the war: by tying the system more and more to employers we (a) reduce labor mobility, thus hurting the economy (especially workers who find themselves tied to jobs because there is no market for individual health care), and (b) miss a critical issue: health care for people who don’t have jobs. By all means, force “deadbeat employers” to pay for health care, but let’s not lose sight of the larger issue: to make our state function efficiently we need to provide health care for everyone at the lowest possible cost — international experience demonstrates conclusively that single payer provides the best care at the least cost.
Single payer is not on the table, yet. Saying that the proposals on the table are inferior to one that folks in power are not considering is kind of beside the point now.
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Should we push for single payer? Sure — but right now we’ve got a chance to insure people who are not insured, and it makes a heck of a lot more sense to make employers pay their share than to let some subsidize the freeloaders.
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Under the circumstances under the circumstances under the circumstances…
in some cases but it absolutely is not true in all. In many cases people who are lacking skills are forced to work a certain number of hours in an underpaid job with no benefits. Their only choice is to take it or loose what little they have. It appears to me you are looking at one class of workers and ignoring the others.
the above post was to rightmiddleleft comments re employers
You’re equating “free market economics” with “justice”. I think that’s nonsense — Social Darwinism, actually.
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Are you going to tell me that an uninsured Wal-Mart clerk who notices a lump in her breast deserves a mammogram less than a woman who works for Fidelity or Raytheon? Or that her fetus deserves pre-natal care — therefore a higher chance of, say, spina bifida — less than Ms. Fidelity? What are you going to say: “Well, Ms. Wal-Mart, too bad about the cancer, but you should have studied harder in school and gotten a better job that offered benefits!”
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Markets create wealth; they do not create justice. That’s what the state is for.
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Now, if employers want to get together and get the state to take the burden off of them, I’m all for that. And indeed, Wal-Mart has made noises about that recently. But that is not the recent history of the health care debate in MA. The business lobby has played a defensive, destructive role. Too bad; we could have used their help — a lot earlier.
Why do you bash me as “totally Clueless”. I raised the point about the free market economy and you react like one of those crazed Lefty demagogues.
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One thing I enjoy about this blog is the credible ideas and intelligent debate from both sides of the aisle. I am a truly rightmiddleleft type of person and enjoy the discourse. But with your attitude a democratic governor will not see the light of day unless of course Karl Marx reappears.
If that sounds personal well excuse me but it is as outragious as your comment
Did you know that those lines in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off are delivered by … Ben Stein?