Senator Ensign of Nevada is no friend of Nevadans. He posted the following on his website:
Photo from the Las Vegas Sun: Senate Finance Committee members Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., left, and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., talk Tuesday on Capitol Hill before the committee’s debate on health care legislation. Ensign spoke at length about his opposition to a government-run insurance plan.
ENSIGN HELPS DEFEAT DEMOCRAT PUBLIC PLAN AMENDMENTS
Schumer and Rockefeller amendments would have included version of government takeover of health care in bill
Washington, D.C. – Senator John Ensign, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, today voted to defeat two amendments that would have attempted to include a version of a government-run plan in the healthcare reform bill.
“I strongly oppose a government takeover of our healthcare system in America and will continue to fight against Democrats’ attempts to include it in the bill,” Ensign said. “A government takeover could force private insurers out of the industry and could force hundreds of millions of Americans, against their will, into government-run health care. A public plan, with one signature from President Obama, could destroy our healthcare industry as we know it and turn every one of our healthcare decisions over to government bureaucrats.”
Because the federal government will act as a competitor, a regulator, and a funder, a government-run plan would ultimately force private insurers out of business. The Congressional Budget Office Director has testified that it would be “extremely difficult” to create “a system where a public plan could compete on a level playing field” against private coverage. The two amendments, offered by Democrat Senators Chuck Schumer and Jay Rockefeller, would have included a version of the public plan in the Senate healthcare bill.
Fact is the healthcare insurance industry IS the problem.
The Las Vegas Sun carried the following in today’s news coverage:
John Ensign: Public option would be popular, so let’s not do it
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John Ensign delivered one of the more curious arguments against a government-run, public health care option during a long and lofty Senate committee debate Tuesday.
People might like it and use it.
Then it would become popular, and too big to fail.
And the government would have to support it.
“Does anyone really believe this Congress will let this government program go away if it has a constituency?” Ensign asked his colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee. “To have a large program like this, once it’s started, you’re never going to get rid of it.”
The public option would be a government-run health care alternative to the private insurance market. It’s intended to provide an option for those currently without health insurance, and, through competition, rein in rising insurance costs.
It has become perhaps the most contentious element in the proposed health care legislation — dividing not only Democrats and Republicans, but also Democrats and Democrats — and is the focus of those trying to defeat the health care bill.
Supporters argue the public option would force insurance companies to compete for all the new business that health care reform would create. The insurance companies stand to gain millions of new customers as both the House and Senate bills require Americans to carry health insurance, just as most states require automobile insurance. More than 30 million Americans are uninsured.
The uninsured could choose to buy the government-run plan or private insurance (and the poor would qualify for an expanded Medicaid program). Those who ignore the new law and go without insurance would face fines.
Tuesday provided a first major test of the public option during an hours-long debate in the Senate Finance Committee, which is the final congressional panel to consider the bill. Committee members were considering two amendments to add the public option.
Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the leading advocate of the public option, delivered an impassioned speech.
Ensign helped hold up the Republican side of the opposition, sometimes drawing on his experience as a veterinarian. For the most part, his argument reflected Republicans’ contention that the new option would be a step toward socialized health care — that the public option would put private insurers out of business.
“All of this is a slippery slope toward complete government-run health care, complete government-run takeover of our health care system,” Ensign said.
Ensign scoffed at the suggestion, proposed in the amendments, that the public option would operate autonomously, relying on premiums paid by customers rather than federal funding. Once the plan got up and running, Ensign said, it would create its own constituency, and Congress would be afraid to kill it off even if it needed federal funding to survive, he said.
“As Ronald Reagan said, ‘The best way to ensure a life is to become a government program,’ ” Ensign said.
“These government programs start and they grow and they grow and they grow and they grow,” he said. “Government was set up to do the things we need it to do, not the things we want it to do.”
The amendments failed. Public option supporters vow to continue fighting on the Senate floor.
Ensign might be right. Should it be adopted, the public option might become too big to fail. Polls show most Americans — 65 percent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News survey — support a public option.
Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.
What a reason to defeat the public option proposed by Senator Rockefeller! People might like it? It is pretty clear who Senator Ensign is representing – the health insurance industry.
Related posts:
Rockefeller and Schumer YOUR FANTASTIC!
ATTENTION!! Congress Has The Votes Needed To Pass A Public Option – TODAY http://bit.ly/TCq7O
Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential – By jacksmith – Working Class
Robert Reich explains the pubic option: http://bit.ly/dDYSJ http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Hollywood Supports The Public Option
http://bit.ly/3XLwPi
It’s not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.
It’s not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!
It’s not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
It’s not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
It’s not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don’t work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!
It’s not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It’s professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.
THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:
The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.
At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!
But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.
This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time…is…UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op’s! No Triggers! NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATES! without a Strong public option on day one.
Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.
BUT WE MUST ACT!
I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.
SPREAD THE WORD!
I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.
Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith – Working Class
Things You Can Do To Help NOW! http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/09/tired_of_watching_people_die_n.html
No Triggers! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/a-trigger-for-the-public_b_277910.html
Triggers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/weve-seen-these-triggers_b_283583.html
Krugman on heathcare (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
John Garamendi on the Public Option and the Grassroots: http://bit.ly/TJMty
Howard Dean on the Public Option http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKfW2dUnow&feature=player_embedded
We’re Number 37! in quality of health care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4&feature=player_embedded
Twitter search (#welovethenhs #NHS #hc09 #hcr #healthcar #obama #p2 #topprog #) Check it out.
Thank you Jacksmith.
Isn’t it funny how things have come full circle? Remember way back when Bush was President and the left kept saying that Republicans were using fear to motivate us?
Well now it is not just a health care, I mean Health Insurance crisis, it is now a HOLOCAUST. For the past two years the Democrats have had a majority in the House and they did not put forward any legislation to stop this “holocaust”. They currently have a majority in both the House and Senate and still they want to blame the Republicans.
When asked if he would apologize for his statement Representative Grayson said he would not because he spoke the truth. Well Joe Wilson spoke the truth and they censured him on the floor.
Let me get back to the point here and that is the Democrats have done nothing to avert this “holocaust” and now they want to blame the other side for their own cowardice. They could just force this through, but then they would be responsible for it and they can’t have that so instead they try to pretend that the Republicans are stopping them.
The Republicans have put forth many amendments and they have been voted down along party lines. They even voted down the amendment that would make the Senate and House post the Bills on line for the public to read. Why not do this simple thing? Well, they say, there is not enough time or that we are too stupid to understand it.
This is what we understand. This current Congress, and the last, has repeatedly hidden from us what they are doing and everything has become a rush. Almost everything. The War in Afghanistan can wait until Obama comes back from Denmark where he is pitching the Olympics for his friends and former business partners back in Chicago.
It is clear, to anyone who will be honest, that the majority of people DO NOT want a government option.
I used the correct term in defining the OPTION. It is and was always suppose to be a take over of the Medical Insurance Industry. Yes it was always the plan to give to the American people NO CHOICE and force us to take what Big Brother wants us to have.
The far left, like Bill Maher, believe that we are too stupid to know what is good for us and that government is much better equipped to make that decision for us.
Again the VAST MAJORITY of Americans want freedom and do not trust the Government for good reason; They have proven to be untrustworthy.
So let’s stop all of the Bullshit and do what we all know will work:
TORT reform and allow insurance companies to sell across State lines. These two simple items will reduce cost and more people could then afford it. Then we can fix the other problems, without spending our children’s children’s future.
Tell you what Dan. You send me the Republican Health Plan and I’ll post it on this blog. I’ve never seen a GOP health plan.
Grayson is right. “Research released this week in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance. If a person is uninsured, “it means you’re at mortal risk,” said one of the authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. (See http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/september/45000_american_deat.php.)
You are in error when you say “the majority of people DO NOT want a government option.” The Helena (Montana) published a poll “As of Friday afternoon, 593 respondents said they would vote for a single-payer health insurance option if it were a national referendum, while 130 said they would not. That’s 82 percent of the 723 respondents who would vote for single-payer.” That is just one poll.
No, the Republican Party has never undertaken a reformation of the health care system in the United States. They are, as they have been consistently reported as being, the political party of NO. They are determined to retain the status quo. The Republican leadership has been invited to participate in trying to fashion a feasible and viable solution to the problem, but they have refused to do anything except criticize and drag their feet. So far as I am concerned the Democratic Congress could and should just ignore the Republican Leadership and move on with it.
The health care problem has been around for decades. Neither party, Democrat or Republican, would tackle it all those years. Too difficult a problem and no percentage, politically, in it to warrant touching it–until Obama showed up.
The problem of health care centers on the insurance industry and their greed. Neither tort reform nor being able to sell across state lines is going to to solve the problem. Tort damages are set by juries, not lawyers, not government. Some 3-4 insurance companies control the industry–a virtual monopoly, subservient to Wall Street and the need to continually produce profits to enhance the worth of their stock. The interest of those companies in health care is money, not people.
Jack,
How can the Republicans get a plan through when they are voted down on every amendment that they try to put foward?
As for your poll I could show you others that say different and when it it sated for what it is a “Government Option” it is roundly defeated in polls.
Finally the study you cited is from a Professor and many, many “praticing Doctors” (that is those who do more than just teach) know that a Govvernment Option would be a disaster. Also the number, 45,000 is still no Holocaust as nearly that many die every year from the flu and how about auto deaths. Maybe we should ban all cars to stop the Holocaust of deaths on our roads.
We can fix Health Insurance without giving more of our rights over to the Federal Government and that is the point that many on the left miss. This will only increase an already bloated Federal Government.
An amendment proposed on a Democrat plan is not a Republican plan. There are many more polls which says the same as the Helena, Montana poll. The finding about the 45,000 deaths came from a Harvard University study, referred to by a doctor. 45,000 deaths a year because of lack of insurance is a disgrace, holocaust or not. We’re supposed to be the most advanced nation on earth. Read Physicians for a National Health Program. “Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 17,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.” Those are people in the medical profession that don’t just teach. Finally, reformation of the health system doesn’t forfeit any right to the Federal Government. Remember, Obama said if you like the health plan you have you can keep it. If not, you have a choice to select a government plan. I’d rather have a “bloated Federal Government” than a “bloated profit-oriented Insurance System answerable only to Wall Street” that isn’t cutting it.
I have pated this study to show that not all docotrs or studies show the “holocaust” referred to by Grayson and being crowed about by Dems. There are Republican Plans, by please remember I think both parties are out to lunch and there are knockle draggers in the Dem party too.
This is about individual rights no matter how many times you say it isn’t or Obama might say we can keep out plans. HR676 states clearly that if it passes my current plan must go away as they will no longer be able to compete unless they do as the government demands.
Again, freedom is not about being as free as the Feds say we can be and there is still no constitutional authority to allow the Feds to TAK OVER health care. Yes that is what it will be no matter how many times Obama says it isn’t so.
This study says there is no real difference in mortality rates. Of course you can choose to deny these facts and choose facts that suit your preprogramed ideas about what you want.
THURSDAY, April 23 (HealthDay News) — People without health insurance have about the same mortality rate as people with health insurance, according to an observational study published online April 21 in Health Services Research.
Richard Kronick, Ph.D., of the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine in La Jolla, and colleagues followed up on 672,526 adults ages 18 to 64 years who reported being uninsured or insured privately on the National Health Interview Survey during the years 1986 to 2000. From the survey baseline, mortality in the group was followed through 2002. Cox proportional hazard survival analysis was used to assess the association between insurance status and mortality.
Researchers found that the risk of mortality for uninsured survey respondents was not significantly different than respondents who had employer group insurance (hazard ratio, 1.03 after adjustments for health status, demographics and health behaviors). Leaving health status out of the adjustment calculation increased the risk of mortality (hazard ratio, 1.10) and leaving smoking status and body mass index out of the adjustment calculation also increased the risk of mortality (hazard ratio, 1.20).
“The Institute of Medicine’s estimate that lack of insurance leads to 18,000 excess deaths each year is almost certainly incorrect. It is not possible to draw firm causal inferences from the results of observational analyses, but there is little evidence to suggest that extending insurance coverage to all adults would have a large effect on the number of deaths in the United States,” the authors write.
(Well, maybe this isn’t a holocaust after all as there are about 42k that diue from auto accidents. SHould we ban cars next? Maybe we should only be allowed to ride horses, but then PETA would be mad.)