Congressman Charlie Melancon represents Louisiana's Third Congressional District but is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate so that he can run against David Vitter.
I can't for the life of me figure out why!
On Saturday, Melancon voted in favor of the Stupak amendment which banned any public option money and any insurance program in the insurance exchange created in the healthcare reform bill. The vote on the amendment was seen as a necessity by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in order to get the votes needed to pass the overall reform bill.
But, even with the abortion funding ban language included in the bill, Melancon could not bring himself to vote for the bill. He was one of more than 30 Democrats to vote against the bill. Republican Anh Cao of Louisiana's Second Congressional District provided the sole Republican vote in support of the bill, but Melancon could not bring himself to support either his party or his president and support this legislation.
So, the question is this: Why is Charlie Melancon running as a Democrat for the Senate?
(Pretty good analysis of the opt-out version of the Public Option. Whether the progressives in the House allow the opt-out to pass is an open question. - promoted by ryan)
It's not often that Harry Reid and Alan Levine team up on anything, but they did today in laying out the path to Democratic success in Louisiana in the 2011 statewide elections.
That path will be healthcare. Specifically, it will be Governor Bobby Jindal's ideological rigidity on taxes in the face of what will be draconian (criminal?) cuts in healthcare in the state budget over the next two years. With healthcare and higher education still the only funding streams not constitutionally protected and the state facing a billion dollar revenue shortfall, Jindal will force the Legislature to make heavy cuts in both programs.
Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate carried a story saying the higher education cuts will amount to 60 percent over the next two years. No mention of healthcare, but that's where the bulk of the cuts will be and for two reasons. First, that's where the money is (Medicaid is a $6 billion program). Secondly, no one in the Legislature is lobbying to protect the interests of the poor, the handicapped and those with special needs — the victims of these coming cuts. Oh, the hospitals, nursing homes and doctors will object, but you won't see anything resembling the "Intervention at the Mansion" earlier this year where all of the non-imprisoned former governors got together to tell the Boy Governor that he just could not cut $200 million-plus from higher education.
No notables stood up for Medicaid clients then. And none will do it in the coming session.
They are, in the current world of Louisiana politics, "expendable."
We have never been closer to passing Health Care Reform that helps all Americans. Now is the time to push our Congress to support the Public Option. On October 20th, we need to flood the phone lines of Senator Mary Landrieu's office with calls telling her to support the Public Option. Please commit to call yourself and in addition call 10 of your friends, family members, casual acquaintances, or complete strangers and get them to commit to calling as well. It can be done in 5 easy steps:
1. 1-866-288-1495
2. enter your zip code
3. Tell Senator Landrieu to support the public option
4. Call 10 people to do the same
5. Change America
In its present form, health care will bankrupt us. Even the most conservative of experts warn of impending disaster without comprehensive reform. Premiums, deductibles, co-pays are rising dramatically faster than wages are. We cannot balance the budget and reduce the federal deficit without comprehensive health care reform. Half of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills and 75% of these people HAD health insurance. (28) Even the healthiest among us are only 1 serious accident or illness away from financial ruin. The elderly have to choose daily between meals and medicine. Parents must choose between clothing their children and taking them to a doctor.
We are coming down to the home stretch on healthcare, and we have seen the results of the first couple of rounds of crazy that have been sent forth in an effort to stop the process.
In addition to the Town Halls, opponents are flooding the email inboxes of America's "low information" voters with no end of lies. Those emails are getting passed around and around and around, and by now some of them have probably appeared in your inbox.
But it's summer...and who has time to respond to this stuff?
Well, guess what, Gentle Reader: I've already done the hard work for you.
Today's story is an email response that you can send right back to your "inbox friends". It's a reminder of some of the frustrations that we all share in this country and some explanations of what's being proposed...and a few words about socialism, to boot.
So get out there and copy and paste and forward and reply, and let's see if we can't fight the madness, one email at a time.
In a previous post, I provided an overview of what the House Energy & Commerce Committee says HR 3200 (the Democratic Healthcare Reform bill that includes the public option) will do for each of Louisiana's seven congressional districts.
In this post, we'll look at the cumulative numbers of what HR 3200 will bring to Louisiana individuals, families, businesses and hospitals. These numbers were compiled by going through the district reports and adding up the numbers.
The Committee report shows: the number of small businesses that will get tax credits providing coverage for their employees; the number of seniors who will no longer have to deal with the 'donut' in Medicare Part D; the number of families that the will will help avoid bankruptcy due to the cap on out of pocket medical expenses included in the bill; the amount of money hospitals will receive by avoiding what are now uncompensated care costs; the number of uninsured Louisiana residents who will receive coverage under the bill either through private insurance or the public option; and, the number of households in the top 1.5 percent of incomes that will pay a healthcare surcharge.
(As some evangelicals would say, WWJD? - promoted by ryan)
Something disturbs me about what I witnessed at a Teabag Party in Metairie Aug 22nd and Senator Landrieu's Townhall in Reserve Aug 27th. The health care debate was mangled by misinformed people carrying inflammatory signs and shouting their parroted nonsense about illegal immigrants, abortion, death panels, and government take-over. Unfounded fears are being fueled and anti-government sentiments are being stoked. Insensitivity and selfishness ("me, myself, and I and damn everyone else") are rampant among people claiming to be Christian. They hurl insults calling the uninsured losers and moochers. On which side do they think Jesus would really stand?
The real issue-a moral one-is being ignored. Health care should be accessible to all and not based on the profit margins of others. The rationing going on now in our present for-profit broken system is maddening. Insurance magnates are practicing medicine without a license and making life and death decisions based on what their stockholders stand to lose and gain. People screaming the loudest to oppose health care reform do not realize they are but one serious illness or accident, 1 job layoff, away from financial ruin themselves.
Even the most conservative of experts warn that unless the U.S. reforms health care substantially, we are destined for an economic collapse. The costs of health care are spiraling out of control. Tort reform has not even dented skyrocketing costs and ballooning premiums. Doing nothing and installing more insurance companies as competition are nonsensical. Offering tax deductions and subsidies are not the answer. We must bring down the cost of health care with a public option. Once people see that, though it is not free, it gives more for less, they will opt for it. Herein is the rub. Corporate bureaucrats are afraid that their lucrative gravy train will then become derailed. They are investing untold amounts in media advertising to inflame the uninformed to do their dirty work.
Rather than fight to defeat universal health care, everyone should be focused on finding the best way to pay for it. I am uninsurable and have coverage only because of my husband. Three of our adult children are uninsurable. We are not freeloaders. We work hard. We are no less patriotic than those waving flags and running their mouths. And we are no less deserving of health care.
I especially see the unfairness of our broken health care system in the faces of many of my college students each semester as they struggle to classes sick and uninsured. They cannot afford textbooks, much less doctor visits. The cheapest insurance policy in Louisiana for a healthy 25-year-old has a $1000 deductible, plus $500 deductible for prescriptions, plus $200 a month premiums. So a penniless college student would have to shell out $1500 in addition to premiums before the insurance policy would pay squat.
The American Plan = Public Option Now = Affordable, Accessible Health Care for All! It is long overdue and should not be dependent on the money one makes. We can't delay for a non-existent, perfect compromise to be crafted. Had we waited for such, slavery would still exist and Medicare and Social Security would not.
This is a wonderful tool for supporters of healthcare reform and the public option.
Despite the theatrics at the town hall meetings across the country and across the state, I'm convinced that there is a significant segment of the population open to being swayed by the facts of the healthcare reform legislation and they know they are not getting facts at those town hall meetings from either the audience members or (all too frequently) from the congressman or senator hosting the meeting.
These assessments should be well received by those folks who know that the current system is broken, but have been confused or at least worried by the claims being made against the legislation that will resume movement through both houses of Congress in September.
The Committee's assessments are single-page reports looking at the financial impact of the legislation on each district.
What follows are the highlights of the impact of HR 3200 (which includes the public option) on each of Louisiana's seven congressional districts.
Dah-yum! Says here that the so-called Blue Dog Democrats are raking in political contributions from the pharmaceutical, health insurance and health insurance industries.
McClatchy's Washington news bureau has the shocking news:
As the Obama administration and Democrats wrangled over the timing, shape and cost of health care overhaul efforts during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party's Blue Dog Coalition received came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries, according to watchdog organizations.
The amount outstrips contributions to other congressional political action committees during the same period, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit watchdog organization. The Blue Dogs, a group of fiscally conservative lawmakers, successfully delayed the vote on health care overhaul proposals until the fall.
Of course, it's not being held at a time when most working people would be able to attend such an event, so the Senator's only gonna get older, white senior citizens who have been misled into thinking that their Medicare is going to be taken away by any health care reform enacted by Congress.
That is, unless, YOU decide that you're going to stand up for a strong public option, and let the Senator know that you EXPECT her to vote for such a bill.
The following letter, signed/approved by 24 Louisiana supporters of Senator Mary Landrieu, was hand delivered to her office in Lake Charles today. The letter calls on the senator to support healthcare reform legislation that includes the public option.
• • •
Dear Senator Landrieu:
We write you today as friends, long-time supporters, and concerned Louisiana citizens regarding an issue of great national significance that is critical to the future well being of our state.
In a few days you will be asked to decide whether healthcare coverage will be extended to millions of Americans who do not now enjoy those benefits. As your votes in support of SCHIP and your efforts to support community healthcare demonstrate, you know that people who do not to have access to adequate health care are destined to die younger, suffer many more illnesses and to watch helplessly as their love ones are denied the care that could save their lives or relieve their discomfort. The high cost of health insurance is the main barrier preventing working families and small business owners from gaining access to that care.
Small businesses and large corporations alike are abandoning employer-based health care because of cost. In Louisiana, where the percentage of employers offering healthcare benefits has historically been low, the problem is even worse. Even where coverage is offered, workers frequently cannot afford the premiums to cover their families. The situation will only be made worse by recent cuts in services voted by the Louisiana Legislature.
In spite of the dishonest campaigns being waged to prevent comprehensive national health care from becoming a reality, the overwhelming majority of Americans support it. Surprisingly, over sixty percent of American physicians are also in support of these ends.
We realize the pressure being exerted on you to vote against this program.
The same stale arguments are being made today against the public option that have been made against every progressive endeavor for the last seventy-five years. Social Security was supposed to be the pinnacle of governmental intrusion into our lives. Where would we be today without Social Security? Medicare was another “Socialist” program that was supposed to destroy medical care in our nation. Where would our seniors be without Medicare? The same could be said for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Acts. All of these programs were passed under Democratic presidents and all of them have changed our nation and our lives profoundly for the better.
The vast majority of your political base in Louisiana is composed of people who stand to benefit directly from enactment of a national coverage plan, specifically the public option.
We believe that the public option — where adults can buy into a Medicare-like program — is the best way to control costs by bringing competition to the health insurance system. In Louisiana, the two largest health insurance providers control 74 percent of the health insurance market. The market has failed us by pricing coverage beyond the reach of too many Louisiana citizens.
A national consensus has emerged that the current system must be changed and that only federal government has the scale and reach to change it. If these efforts are not successful, it may be many years before we have a president who is willing to take the challenge and pay the political price to achieve these admirable ends.
We do not consider this to be an issue of politics or party. This is an issue of the basic right of every American to be able to access quality healthcare without the risk of financial ruin. Access to healthcare should not be a privilege available only to those who can afford private health insurance.
As friends and long-time supporters we ask you to please not ignore the people who have repeatedly voted you into office. We have stood with you; now, we are asking you to stand with us in support of the public option.
Sincerely yours,
Mike Stagg, Lafayette Sally O. Donlon, Lafayette Dr. Mike Robichaux, Raceland Deborah Langhoff, New Orleans Stephen Handwerk, Lafayette Angelique LaCour, Covington Barbara St. Romain, MSW, LCSW, Lafayette John St. Julien, Lafayette Edna D. St. Julien, Lafayette Phillip Arleigh Lank, Lafayette Mark Lastrapes, New Orleans Michelle Vega, New Orleans Robert J. Guercio, Lafayette Anna K. Guercio, Lafayette Charles St. Romain, LCSW, Lafayette Rebecca Chaisson, Lake Charles Joanne Pettit, Mandeville Daryl Pettit, Mandeville Adrienne LaCour, Covington Karen E. Keller, MS, Lafayette State Representative Juan LaFonta, New Orleans Lauren Lastrapes, New Orleans Dr. Douglas de Mahy, Lafayette Marie de Mahy, Lafayette Andrea Loewy, Lafayette
Change That Works has finally branched out into the Acadiana area. We are now fully staffed with 4 organizers and 1 lead organizer to help bring Health Care reform to America. It is long overdue.
We need your help and your stories about Health Care so we can convince Senator Mary Landrieu to support President Barack Obama's Health Care Reforms, including a public option!
If you would like to get involved in our cause please contact us at 337-216-7734 or changethatworkslafayette@gmail.com.
Our "Democratic" Senator has signed onto a letter asking for more time to kill health insurance reform.
While the Senators are polite, and say they want more time to study the proposals, the fact is, they want the extra time so their wealthy benefactors - the health insurance industry - can scare Americans into believing that they are going to lose their health insurance under any legislation currently circulating in Congress. The fact is, any health insurance reform bill that does not include a public, national health insurance program will be a bill designed to pad the bottom line of the health insurance companies.
That's what happens when your Senator looks at her position as a job, and not a cause. Because if she treated being a Senator from Louisiana as a cause, she'd be more likely to fight to improve people's lives, the electoral consequences of her actions be damned. But no, because she looks at being Senator as a job, she worries about raising money for her re-election. Thus, she doesn't want to piss off the people who donated $1.6 million that much.
Be a leader, Senator. You come from the state that gave us Huey Long. Huey fought for us all ... regardless of socioeconomic position and race. You've done the same in areas that don't threaten your ability to raise campaign cash. Something tells me that if Huey were alive today, he'd be coming up with quotes like this about your campaign contributors:
"We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slaveowning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild."
And then he'd call you a coward for not standing up to them for US.
The American Medical Association (AMA) — GASP!!! — has endorsed the healthcare reform legislation proposed by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to the Associated Press:
The American Medical Association on Thursday endorsed a liberal health overhaul bill that includes a public insurance option, a bold step for a traditionally conservative group with a checkered past on health reforms.
In its strongest action yet signaling support for President Barack Obama's vow to reform health care, the nation's largest doctors' group sent letters to three House committees behind the bill. The letters, signed by AMA's executive vice president, Dr. Michael Maves, said the AMA appreciates and supports what is being called America's Affordable Health Choices Act.
This is an historic shift. The AMA opposed the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. It's conference of delegats gave President Obama a lukewarm reception when he addressed their convention earlier this summer.
"I don't represent the big oil companies, the big pharmaceuticals or the big insurance industry. They already have great representation in Washington. Its the rest of the people that need representation." - Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat, Minnesota
You may associate the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with backward, regressive policies on health care and tort, both vital issues to people suffering asbestos-related diseases, such as mesothelioma. But there is another U.S. Chamber of Commerce with very different views.
The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce represents 500,000 members, mostly small business owners who say their businesses are “suffocating” under the weight of rising health care costs. The USWCC recently published a position paper on health care (pdf alert) that advocates:
Guaranteed, affordable health insurance coverage without discrimination for age, gender, ethnicity, economic level, region, and health status for all Americans, plus a requirement that all Americans obtain such coverage.
Health Insurance Exchanges to help people find their best insurance options.
Allowing small businesses to obtain coverage for employees at negotiated bulk rates through purchasing pools.
A robust government-led public plan to take on the insurance carriers, provide vigorous competition, and assure all Americans have access to affordable health insurance.
The USWCC doesn’t seem to have taken a position on tort reform, one way or another.
What’s most interesting to me about the USWCC’s position paper is that it lays out in stark terms the way the current health care “system” is killing small business. This is not the story we’re getting from Republicans and other opposed to government-led reform. Fingers are wagged at us, and we are told sternly that health care reform will hurt small business and small business is the biggest creator of jobs therefore health care reform will cost jobs therefore (inhale) you don’t really want it.
In fact, the “regular” U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running an ad that claims “A ‘pay-or-play’ employer mandate would force employers to accommodate the new costs of providing health insurance by cutting jobs.” “Pay or play” refers to a proposal that all but the very smallest companies be required either to offer health insurance benefits to employees or pay an assessment that would help finance some alternative source of health insurance. Along with this small business owners would receive tax breaks to help offset the costs of insurance. Still, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says “pay or play” would be ruinous.
But the USWCC says:
“Over the last nine years health insurance premiums for businesses have increased nearly five times faster than inflation and four times faster than wage growth. …
“…The net result to our American economy caused by the explosion in healthcare costs is lower outputs, less job growth, less innovation, suppressed wages, and probable employer discrimination. High health insurance costs are forcing employers to delaying wage growth, hiring, capital spending, product development and marketing thereby suppressing business growth.”
Via Mike Hall of the AFL-CIO news blog, the Institute for America’s Future argues that a “pay or play” option, if properly thought out and implemented, would not result in significant job losses. “Most likely there will be significant job gains. At the very worst, job losses would represent a few hundredths of one percent of employed workers,” it says.
It seems to me that conservatives these days are mostly engaged in telling America what it can’t have and can’t do. The insurance industry tells us it can’t stay in business unless it can refuse coverage to people with preexisting conditions or dump people whose illnesses are just getting way too expensive. But we’re not to have a public insurance option, we’re told, because it would cost too much money and be bad for business (i.e., the private insurance industry). If we try to come up with a plan that would help build up the employee-based insurance option, we’re told that would be bad for business, too.
But doing nothing also is bad for business. In the meantime, increasing numbers of Americans are unable to obtain health insurance, and conservatives seem to have no plan at all for helping them other than to chant “free market free markets free markets.” Brilliant.
Last year, Senator Mary Landrieu campaigned hard on the slogan:
But, ever since the election, she's been fighting for the health insurance companies and her allies in the business sector, rather than the people who actually VOTED to send her back to Washington.
Granted, she's done a fantastic job fighting for our interests when it comes to rebuilding our state from the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Gustav, in addition to the destruction wreaked by the Federal Flood in the New Orleans region.
So she's making sure that we can continue to live in the state we all love. But how about making sure we can continue to LIVE, Senator?
The health care plan you're currently supporting will mandate that all Americans buy into private health insurance plan, and have government looking over us every time we interact with it. Not to mention that such a mandate will be a boon to the health insurance industry - more premiums they can stick in their pockets while denying individuals the care they need. On top of that, if the Wall Street Journal's opinion page - the paper for Wall Street - has anything good to say about that plan, then you can bet your bottom dollar, Senator, that it is NOT in the best interests of Louisianans, let alone the American people.
EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND (pdf alert) of your constituents, Senator, are currently living without health insurance, either because they are uninsurable due to being a survivor of a serious illness, or because they simply can't afford the premiums.
And yet you think some government regulations will squeeze enough savings out of the health insurance companies to lower the cost enough to ensure that all Louisianans will be able to afford to purchase a health care plan? We are talking about an industry that engages in despicable practices like rescission:
If you worked for a company that offered insurance, if you carried your family's insurance, next year your insurer would slap a million dollar surcharge on the company policy for carrying a leukemia patient. The company would get the bill and someone in accounting would question "what is this extra million dollars we are being billed?"
The insurance company would explain to them that the million is for you, and it is yearly, but is, ahem, "fixable." They will say "as long as she is on your insurance (wink, wink) this charge will be there. So what you have to ask yourself (more wink, wink) is whether this employee is worth a million dollar a year salary on top of what you are already paying her."
Social worker said she had seen small business owners go almost broke trying to cover this charge, and had even heard of one who defiantly did go broke, throwing all of the employees out of work. But more usually, she said, they just fire you.
"Wait, wait!" say you, "Isn't it illegal to fire someone for their health history? Suppose I'm all well and working?"
She looks at you with more pity, says yes, so of course they will have to find "cause" to fire you, which any employer can always do.
"But I am a very, very good employee!" you protest.
"Yes," she says, "but they can always find some cause." The real problem she goes on to explain, is that you will find a new job, that company's insurer will slap them with the surcharge, they will take their turn at firing you, until you've been through six or seven jobs in a year, fired "for cause" from all of them, which of course looks very, very bad to a prospective employer.
"So in a year or so of this, you will not just be uninsurable, you will also be unemployable."
She asks who your husband works for, since they'd probably try to do this to him too. You say he is a cop working for a municipality, which pleases her. "They have all sorts of layers of officials, elected and otherwise, to work their way through to get to the decision, then once they do they have to get past his union, so it will take much longer to get him fired." She also, though, offered sympathy for the fact that what with the police union and the municipality fighting out whatever "cause" they got him on in such a public profession, it was sure to end up in the local papers and disrupt all our lives - including the children's - when they did get that far.
You remind her you seem headed for divorce, and she says, well, okay then, just carry the COBRA to the limit and keep on working for small not-for-profits that don't offer insurance.
You ask her what you are supposed to do for health care and she says sooner or later the insurance companies would force you onto Medicaid - either by means of making you unemployable and broke, or by means of you being uninsured and going through any and all assets you have paying medical bills until you are broke and sick enough that you can't work, and end up on Medicaid.
It's high time for you get back on that saddle. Perhaps then you won't be afraid to face your constituents. After all, you've canceled two appearances - one at The Healing Center's grand opening and two weeks ago when you didn't participate in a scheduled Q&A at a Small Business Committee field hearing in New Orleans. On top of that, it is comical that your staff seems intent on making sure that no bad press emerged from that event by tailing known provocateurs, one of whom just happens to be a former intern in your New Orleans office.
