I’m reminded of an excellent roundtable discussion at TAPPED, outlining what a decent set of health care priorities would look like. There was some thought that the tie should be cut between employer and coverage. I have to agree with that, since it seems unfair to both employer and employee on any number of levels. So, I’m definitely not crazy about Donoghue wanting to mend, not end, that relationship: “Blending employer contributions with government tax incentives is the best way forward.” Seems to me the incentive is always for the employer to avoid making that contribution — QED. I’m also not convinced that it’s all that politically viable — witness how easy uninsuring employers got off in oh-so-liberal Massachusetts.
She would transfer the insurance tax break to an employee of an uninsuring employer, making it more affordable for that employee to buy it. Well, that’s a fine idea, but I don’t see tax breaks as being the total answer: For some folks, it doesn’t matter how much of a tax break they get — they still just can’t afford insurance.
And as a self-employed person, I’m always left with the feeling that employer-based plans treat us as an afterthought — although I’m pleased that her plan includes the creation of new insurance buying pools for small business, much like the Massachusetts plan. At this point, that’s just a no-brainer.
Other than these, Donoghue supports expansion of SCHIP — Medicare for kids. She also supports the feds negotiating drug prices; reimportation of drugs from other countries; electronic medical records; and an emphasis on preventative care. All fine, but not something that would distinguish her significantly from, say, Niki Tsongas.
With her sideways glance at the single-payer argument, Donoghue seems to acknowledge that we need a new vision, a new model for health care. But I’m not sure I actually get that from her plan: It seems like a solid bunch of incremental reforms that are fine in and of themselves, but will never catch the public’s imagination — which is what the reformers are going to need in 2009 going forward. The wonky stuff does matter — it’s a sign of good faith and having done one’s homework. But it should be in the service of a real vision: A, B, and C will lead to result D. This plan is a bit like asking how to get to Springfield, and having someone tell you, “Put gas in the car.”
She’s disappointed me the most in this race. To understand that there’s only one good solution to the health care crisis in this country and essentially ignore it because it’s difficult shows a severe lack of leadership. It’s one thing to vote for incremental change; that’s something I could get behind. However, it’s another to go to D.C. saying “we’re never going to be able to get this done.” The reason why we haven’t solved Health Care is because we’ve elected too many Eileen Donoghues and Niki Tsongasas (people who don’t even get the solution) to be our Democratic representatives in Congress. They’re either DINOs on the issues that matter most or too timid to challenge the Republicans and those DINOS within the party.
Ryan, I think you make some good points, but you really need to consider that the reason we DON’T have health care, DON’T have an end to the war, DON’T have an EPA that defends the environment, and DON’T have a reasonable tax policy is because of Bush and the Republicans, who have controlled Congress for the last ten years. And do you really think the Democrats have held up, say, stem cell research?
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Let’s take a field trip to Georgia or North Dakota if you want to see who the real bad guys are.
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My reason for supporting Niki rather than Eileen is that I’ve observed both histories in Lowell. Niki may not have the longest track record but she’s always been honest and consistently made contributions that make ours a better community.
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Ms. Donoghue’s positions have started to bother me. She’s now practically taking credit for the entire revitalization of Lowell. The important lesson of Lowell is that it’s a teamwork thing. Heck, she’s one of nine City Councilors. Single payer is ideal but she supports the more practical solution. Her most important priority is veterans but she allows the staff of the Lowell Veteran’s office to be cut. And then there’s switching from a Democrat to an Independent and back.
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Seems pretty calculating, no?
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Will
He’s much more deserving of your support than Niki is – she’s on the board of Fallon Community Health, for cryin’ out loud! She’ll never support single payer with a conflict of interest like that in her resume.
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The fact is, health insurance is NOT health care – the for-profit insurance industry is in the business of denying care to the people who pay the premiums, and if you’re one of the 44 million people in this country without access to insurance, you’re doubly screwed. We live in the richest, most powerful nation on earth, yet 12 year old boys can die for want of a dental visit – I’m sorry, but that’s unconscionable, and we need elected officials who will acknowledge that reality and take practical steps to ensure it never happens again.
Will:
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Let me quote you directly from a comment you had posted on LiL: “Your efforts actually distract from the seriousness and stature of the Donoghue campaign.”
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Why have Eileen’s positions have started to bother you? Is it because we have a race now. What you failed to mention in your criticism of Eileen’s lack of teamwork is that 5 of her current colleagues on the Lowell City Council have endorsed her as well as 4 previous City Council members who worked with her during those 12 years. And of course so hasn’t our State Senator and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Steve Panagiatakos and Lowell State Rep. Kevin Murphy.
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How many elected officials from Lowell current and past have endorsed Niki? None.
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If you were so concerned that the Lowell Veterans’ office that went from 4 staff members to 3, you should have appeared during the public hearing and voiced your opinion. By the way, if you know of one veteran who is receiving poor service because that budget decision, please let us know.
…of 5 present Lowell City Councilors and 4 previous Lowell City Councilors and State Senators Panagiatakos and Baddour make Eileen Donoghue a better fit for the congressional seat than Niki Tsongas?
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Niki Tsongas has some pretty impressive endorsements, too, including U.S. Representative Barney Frank.
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But, in all honesty, who cares about the endorsements of a bunch of political partisans? It means virtually nothing.
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Actually, with Ms. Donoghue, I am more concerned that she financially supported and endorsed a Romney Republican two years ago in his bid to unseat a progressive Democratic State Senator…because he was a friend of hers. That doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence for me in her judgement.
It’s not just the Republicans, it’s the Democrats who have their hands in the wrong pockets. If you value single-payer, you’re backing the wrong horse. Niki Tsongas has repeatedly said she does not support single-payer. I watched the entire health-care forum up close and personal; my thoughts and reactions are on my website, Ryan’s Take. There are a lot of Democrats elected to the House and Senate who are just like her… and they aren’t a part of the solution. If every Democrat supported single payer, the House would have approved it by now and the Senate would be in emergency sessions trying to scare Republicans with opinion polls to get them to budge. The fact of the matter, though, is that at least a dozen Senators would join a Republican filibuster to prevent true, Universal quality health care for everyone – even though it would save this country hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
She’s right that there isn’t the “political will,” to make universal health care a reality — but that inertia seems to be restricted just to Washington. The truth is, the American people want universal health care.
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In march a poll was released which said:
This kind of feeling has been around for long time:
In fact, even Republicans are getting on board lately.
So it seems that it’s possible to start moving some on the opposite side of the aisle, too.
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Now, it’s true that doesn’t mean anything will actually happen. Given the big Pharma lobby and how slowly things seem to move in Washington, I’m not saying that we’ve really even begun to move in the right direction. But to say that there’s no ‘political will’ in DC to make it happen misses the point: as Ryan said, a good Congressperson would work to build that political will. And with numbers like these, it seems like advocates of universal health care have a pretty good start.
who are waiting for someone else to stick their neck out on healthcare reform first, is not what we need more of.
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we’ve already got plenty of those.
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do you want someone who waits for ‘political will’, or creates it.
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people want leaders. not more train jumpers.
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Haven’t you heard? National Healthcare causes terrorism!
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The last two ideas are excellent and Id even go a step further and offer universal coverage for children which I think could easily pass because it would look like the GOP hates children by voting against it.
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That said I take issues with two things regarding her stance:
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The first is that I disagree with her on single payer being a lost cause in the short term, Sicko just came out to rave reviews, the majority of Americans support it, and fingers crossed it looks like in at least two years when Ms. Donahuge would actually be in Congress we will have a Democratic majority in both houses and the WH and it might become a reality.
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And the second is this idea of an employee mandate, I think its bad for several reasons. First of all the employer based healthcare system is terrible to begin with since essentially it dilutes the power of the free market and actually kills the competition in HMOs more effectively than any government system could dream of doing. They currently act as cartels and really the consumer has no choice since the boss makes the choice. Similarly mandating that employers have health insurance will hurt the economy since the additional cost of insurance will be passed on to the consumer, forget low prices at Wal Mart with this proposal. Also jobs will be lost since the cost of having a lot of staff will go up, i.e a small business with 5 employees where one will need to be fired to pay for the other 4s insurance. And worst of all it definitely has the mark of a big government nanny state image, the state forcing someone to do something and that will only backfire.
Has anyone here actually run a small business (less than 20 people)? Imposing an employer health care mandate would send small businesses fleeing (or cause them to shut down or shrink to sole proprietors.) Don’t you think politicians would then heap all sorts of mandates on employers? There’d be no end of it.
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Not only is the employer mandate an absurd economic concept, Charlie’s right — it’s DOA politically.
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The Medicaid/SCHIP expansion (I think you meant income-qualified Medicaid, not Medicare) would be a disaster in the making for our already wickedly unfunded national Medicare liability (in the TRILLIONS.) Besides, hasn’t this silly idea already failed to get any traction in Congress?
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Lastly, I’ve run a multi-employer welfare group (1,100 employee in 20 companies,) and it’s very very hard to keep together. Invariably, individual companies migrate to lower cost plans and leave the group with the worst risks. Still, I’d be for this if the government stopped mandating coverage levels and let the free market do it’s thing. I was able, in the first 2 years of the national group I ran, to reduce global premiums by over 40%, and increase benefits by about 25% (adding Rx, dental, and many other fringes.)
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Here’s one idea which I know would work: eliminate the tax deductibility of health cost premiums for business, but switch it to individuals if proceeds are put into a health maintenance account … the truly portable individual health care account for life.
another blogger tell me at Take Back America that actually, we should outlaw all underwriting and then let the insurers do their thing — “they’d be on the uninsured like white on rice”, he said.
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Of course, one wonders with 45+million uninsured why they haven’t done so already.
I respect that fact that some of Eileen’s colleagues have endorsed her. However, they ARE her colleagues and Niki is not. I also remember when Paul Tsongas ran for County Commissioner and Congressman. You could have counted his endorsers on a couple of fingers. Niki also has endorsements from the two previous Congressmen, Ellen Murphy Meehan and Barney Frank. That’s pretty impressive.
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On the Veteran’s office thing, you’re reaching now. An office with 2 people can serve more than an office with 1 staff person. Tell the veteran coming back from Iraq that Eileen anticipated that services wouldn’t be compromised. Based on your thinking, why not advocate similar cuts at Walter Reed?
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Will