Category: Public Policy

See two notes at the end, where I point to one unfinished part of this analysis and also show how my approach is similar to and different from that of Nate Sliver at 538. With the possibility that a public option won’t be part of the health care reform legislation passed this year, progressives are looking more closely at the rest of the legislation. And some of them have been worried by what they are seeing. For even when subsidies are applied in the Exchange, moderate income families will pay a substantial amount for health care in both premiums and out of pocket expenditures. Some progressive are asking how we can justify asking moderate income families to pay so much for health care? But, in fact, the health insurance program that would be created under the House legislation would be highly beneficial to moderate income families. Subsidized insurance under the Exchange… Continue reading

Just to let you know: I’m keep track of all the so-called progressive so-called organizations sending me emails saying we need to kill health care reform. In the future, when they jump on another issue campaign to build their email lists—and that is when you hear from them because basically that is all they do–I’m going to get out here, on Twitter, on Facebook my blog and anywhere else I can, a reminder that these are the people who care more about attracting your dollars with misleading appeals to ideological purity, then about doing something that actually makes life better for poor and working class people. Continue reading

I argued in my last post that we should stay the course and make the final bill as good as possible. This mostly means replacing some provision in the Senate bill with provisions form the House bill in four areas. I’ll discuss them and then turn to some good features of the Senate bill we want to keep. Continue reading

I want to report to you on where the health care bill is as of this moment. The news is not as good as I hoped it would be. But there is every reason to keep working hard to make this legislation as good as possible. Continue reading

I wrote this about three weeks ago as an op-ed for a local paper. But, by the time the editor got to it, the public option was in trouble in the Senate where it remains. It might be dead this year. But let’s not forget that the House voted for it. And a House-Senate conference committee will have to figure out how to merge the two bills. As we move closer to that moment, the public option, which has been counted out more than once before, may make a comeback. And the fundamental reason is that it just makes sense. That’s why public support for the public option remains high as 60 and 65 percent of the public think it is a good idea. Continue reading

We don’t yet know much about what’s in the compromise the Senate 10 has come up with. But what I’m hearing does not leave me enthused. Rather it leaves me worried. Continue reading

I sent this as an email to 15,000 of my closest friends, the health care activists in Pennsylvania, this morning. Dear Friends, We have another day or two until the Senate takes up health care reform. Before that happens I want to give you an update about where our campaign is going and what you can do to move it forward. Where we are At this point in our campaign, the most important thing I want to say is that we progressives have to learn how to win. It’s been a long time since we have enacted major legislation that dramatically improve the lives of working people and the middle class. And while, we have built a huge movement and made a lot of progress this year, I’m still not sure we know how win. In saying that we have to learn how to win, I mean to say a… Continue reading

Members of the HCAN coalition are divided about the Stupak amendment to HR 3962. Some are pro-life. Most of are pro-choice. As a organization, however, we are working to remove the Stupak amendment from both the Senate bill and the bill that comes out of the conference committee. What’s Wrong With The Stupak Amendment In our view, the Stupak amendment is not about federal funding for abortion. It is much broader than that.  It prevents millions of women from getting insurance coverage that covers abortion services and that is widely available now. Continue reading

Introduction I want to set out why, after over twenty five years of thinking and writing about health care reform, and two and a half years as a health care activist, I’ve always been ambivalent about single payer. That ambivalence is well known to progressive activists in the state. To judge by what they say to each other in emails that friends forward to me, let alone from what they’ve said out in the open, I’ve been public enemy number for single payer advocates in Pennsylvania for a long time. Partly that’s because I’m the leader of HCAN in Pennsylvania, and we have created the largest issue campaign in Pennsylvania history behind the Obama health care plan, a plan that has a very good chance of being enacted this year and that embodies our principles not those held by advocates of single payer. But that’s by no means the whole… Continue reading

Pennsylvania HCAN and our partners did another seventeen events to push health care reform along this week. Click on the links to go to detailed accounts of these events along with pictures and press reports. Our Erie Coalition met Congresswoman Dahlkemper at the Erie Airport on Sunday November 8 to thank her for vote.   We held a health are forum in Williamsport the same day with citizens who have been active in lobbying Congressman Carney.   We did six drop-in thank you events at the offices of Congressmembers Brady, Carney Doyle, Kanjorski, Schwartz and Sestak on Monday November 9.   We did a thank you event for Representative Patrick Murphy on Tuesday November 10.   And we did nine other events on Thursday November 12, thank you events for Representatives Carney, Dahlkemper, Doyle, Kanjorkski and Schwartz who voted for the legislation and shame on you events for four Representatives… Continue reading