Why Max Baucus Should Be "OFF THE TABLE" in Health Care Reform !

Daily Kos: Why Max Baucus Should Be "OFF THE TABLE" in Health Care Reform (with POLL)

Why Max Baucus Should Be "OFF THE TABLE" in Health Care Reform (with POLL)
by fflambeau
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Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 09:55:42 PM PDT

Senator Max Baucus of Montana recently told the Helena Independent Record newspaper that a single payer health care system is "off the table." Baucus's own website has a picture of himself smiling with Kathleen Sebelius--Obama's nominee to head the cabinet post of Health and Human Services--with this caption: "Baucus will work closely with Sebelius and Obama to reform the health care system in the coming months." Source: http://baucus.senate.gov

This diary explains why Max Baucus is unfit to be anywhere near the priority issue of health care reform and the real reason he is against a single payer system that is favored by most Americans in polls and even by doctors and nurses. Max Baucus is bought and paid for by the very insurance companies and big pharmacy that would lose out in a single payer system. He has taken millions of dollars of their money and he has no real commitment to the best and least expensive system, single payer.

* fflambeau's diary :: ::
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I. Baucus moves backwards on health care reform By Taking "Single Payer" Off the Table and By Misleading the Public with his "White Paper".

One might ask: why should a little known senator from a lightly populated Western state like Montana be at the forefront of the democratic party's campaign for health care reform? Unfortunately, Sen. Ted Kennedy whose mantel this should be is very sick. Baucus, meanwhile, as pointed out in an article on his website, is "Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee (and) Baucus will be in charge of her (Sibelius) confirmation hearings." Source: Baucus Press Release, "BAUCUS MEETS TOP HEALTH NOMINEE, STRESSES HEALTH CARE REFORM AND LIBBY" at http://baucus.senate.gov/...

Rather than move forward and explore all options available (as President Obama has recently called for) Sen. Baucus seems to be moving backwards, to the point that he is now NOT EVEN WILLING TO DISCUSS SINGLE PAYER. Last November, Baucus came forward as head of the Senate Finance Committee with a white paper on health care reform called "Call to Action: Health Care Reform 2009". It is available on his website at http://finance.senate.gov/...

The Baucus white paper lays out the poor quality of health care in America and its great cost. But in a misleading section called "What Americans Want From Their Health Care System"--a section where one would expect to find his "meat and potatoes"--Baucus obfuscates:

Despite widespread agreement on the need for reform, the task remains difficult because Americans do not necessarily agree on how to achieve it (see Figure 1.5). Although a majority of respondents would support a mandate on employers to provide coverage, a"Medicare-for-all" single-payer option, or a mandate that all individuals purchase
coverage, opposition to each of these options is also somewhat substantial.

Source: Ibid at p.7 (emphasis added)

Baucus makes the dubious claim that "opposition to each of these options (single payer or "Medicare-for-all" and mandates) is somewhat substantial." "Somewhat substantial"? The figures that Baucus himself provides in his Figure 1.5 referenced above indicate this: Support for "Medicare For All" is 53% while opposition is just 36%. In other words the "somewhat substantial" opposition to single payer is just about what Bush's approval ratings were towards the end of his presidency. Support for an employer mandated program was even higher at 62% with opposition at 31%. Note that Baucus cites figures from a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll of October 19-22, 2007 (a year older than the published date of the white paper and a time of "economic prosperity" unlike now when the figures for single payer are higher--over 60% approval). Source: Ibid at page 7, "Lack of Consensus on Reform Options". In other words, Baucus here is ready to capitulate on single payer EVEN THOUGH in his own cited poll a solid majority of Americans support it! Now, that's real political courage, coming especially from someone who calls himself a Democrat and a leader on reform. What the good senator should know by now is that ALL political plans and proposals have some opposition but not many have as much support as single payer: at 53% and such a small oppositon as 36%. Indeed, more recent polls show support for single payer to be closer to 65% as will be shown later.

An Annals of Internal Medicine study shows 59% of US physicians support it, and in a recent AP poll, 65% of respondents backed universal government-run coverage financed by taxes. In the 110th Congress (January 2007 - January 2009), Rep. John Conyers and 93 co-sponsors endorsed HR 676, the US National Health Care Act. Source: baltimorechronicle.com/2009/031109Lendman.shtml

Dr. Quentin Young, formerly Martin Luther King's personal doctor and also an early advisor to President Obama on health care, had this to say to Amy Goodman on her excellent democracynow.org show:

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Quentin Young, explain. Over and over, you hear Senator Baucus, you hear President Obama, saying it’s not that they’re against this—at least Obama certainly was saying this—it’s that it’s impractical, and people won’t support it. What is the polling—what are the polling figures on single payer? We almost never see it discussed on television, unless an opponent brings it up.

DR. QUENTIN YOUNG: Well, let me say, we have single payer in this country. It was enacted in 1965. It’s called Medicare. And it was put through the Congress by Lyndon Johnson. And then, overnight—overnight, in one year, the system was put in place, and it’s probably the best insurance program in the whole country. The seniors of this country are highly dependent on Medicare. It’s kept them from penury, and that’s—it was done in one year, Amy. No drag-out, no problems. All the things that people worried about just didn’t happen.

Now we’re talking about—somewhat more complicated, but not much—giving single payer to everybody in the country. It’s its simplicity that’s its virtue. It entails one source of payment. Doctors don’t have to wait, as they do so often presently. There’s no hassles. There’s people who will be unemployed; let’s concede, the vast army of people that are dedicated to denying care in the present insurance system will be no longer needed.

And we—our bill, House bill 676, sponsored, first of all, by Congressman Conyers, but with ninety-two supporters in the last Congress—we’re up to sixty in this. It’s extremely popular. This bill will, once enacted, will take a year at the most to fully implement, and then the huge burden of fear of getting sick, which is the plight of almost all America—it’s not a poor person’s problem any longer; it’s middle-class America. And it has to be changed. I wish somehow Barack could see this as the thing that will give dignity and grace to his tenure at the very beginning. It’s very important that this be enacted.

...A study, April 2008, a refereed study published in the very prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine had the very—for me, very happy return that 59 percent of America’s doctors now support a government-run national health insurance to pay for healthcare."

Source: 11 March 2009 program, Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org (a complete transcript of this interview is available there along with a rebroadcast tape of it).

II. Max Baucus's current position on Single Payer

Recently, Senator Baucus had this to say about a single payer system (which it will be recalled, is like Medicare):

"And I think at this time in this country, single payer is not going to get even to first base in the Congress. I just—and we’re also—we’re a big—we’re a big country. It’s—you know, we’re a battleship. We’re an ocean liner. We’re not a PT boat. We’re not a speedboat. It takes time to turn those big, big ships. You just can’t just turn them overnight. And we are—United States of America, we’re a different country. We’re constituted differently than European countries, than Canada and other countries. We’re a younger country, where there’s more of an entrepreneurial sense in America than in those other countries. It’s kind of "go west, young man" in, you know, America and so forth.

So we’ve got to come up with our uniquely American result. An uniquely American result will be a combination of public and private insurance, but one in which everyone is covered. And just my judgment—and every member of Congress agrees with me, I think, at least those I’ve spoken with, that this is not the time to push for single payer. It may come down—it may come later. But it’s not going to happen in America, in my view. So I’m not going to waste my time pushing on something that isn’t going to happen."

Source: Amy Goodman show, Ibid

III. Max Baucus is Bought and Paid for by Insurance and Pharmacy Companies

I guess that news travels slowly to Montana so the good senator doesn't realize that almost 100 Congressman have signed on the Congressman John Conyers single payer tax bill. Or perhaps he doesn't realize that we already have a single payer health system in Medicare which can also be considered "uniquely American." But I expect that the good senator's real reason for his stubborn opposition to single payer and his unwillingness to even consider it (although it would be the cheapest and most effective route by far) is because Max Baucus has been bought and paid for by the insurance companies and pharmacy companies which would lose out in a single payer system.

According to the the website Opensecrets.org, the two BIGGEST contributors to Sen. Baucus from 2003-2008 where: Schering-Plough and New York Life Insurance. Moreover, by industries, Max Baucus took in $588,185 from insurance companies in the same period. Max Baucus also accepted $537,141 from "health professionals" (meaning, the people who have made the system the way it is now) and $523,313 from pharmaceuticals. Max Baucus is little more than a puppet for big insurance and big pharmacy and he does what they want. That's the real reason he has taken single payer "off the table". Source: www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php%3Fcid%3DN00004643+max+baucus+insurance+contributio ns&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk

The website Down With Tyranny in a November 13, 2008 article called, "Can Max Baucus Be Trusted With Crafting Health Care Policy?" went even farther calling Baucus not just a conservative Democrat but a "total corporate shill." Here is why they make that claim as explained in the article:

Since 1990 HMOs have bribed members of Congress to the tune of a cool $59,090,991, the biggest year of all being... 2008 ($10,342,979). Not counting presidential candidates, the biggest recipient of their largesse is none other than Max Baucus (both this year and cumulative years). In the same period, Big Pharma ponied up $162,360,555. Take out the defeated and the retired and the presidential candidates and Baucus was the 5th biggest recipient (cumulatively) and second biggest recipient this year-- right after Mitch McConnell. And in that period from 1990 the uber civic minded Insurance Industry showered members of Congress with $304,486,143 in bribes, $38,231,774 alone this year. Same stipulations and we find Senator Baucus the 4th biggest recipient over-all and the 5th biggest for 2008 (sandwiched comfortably between notorious Insurance industry shills Norm Coleman and John Sununu). Notice a pattern?

I hate to be the skunk a the picnic but... Baucus' proposal doesn't smell right to me. In fact it smells like some industry lobbyists came up with a way to weasel out of H.R. 676 and paid Baucus to wrap up nice and present it as a "uniquely America" reform.

Source: (emphasis added) http://72.14.235.132/...

The Nation has also called Sen. Baucus out and called him K Street's (Washington lobbyists) favorite senator:

Today, in the aftermath of the Democratic sweep of Congress, Baucus is still one of corporate America's favorite Democrats. As chair of the Finance Committee, he counts among his friends and political supporters a Who's Who of bankers, oilmen, ranchers, pharmaceutical lobbyists and Wall Street executives. He's particularly close to Montana's sole billionaire, industrialist Dennis Washington, a major donor to the Republican Party whose business interests Baucus has promoted over the years. The business community, in turn, expresses admiration for Baucus in its usual style--by writing big checks.

Source: Ari Berman, "K Street's Favorite Democrat" The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/...

Now we enter the Twighlight Zone with that intrepid leader and champion of the people, Sen. Max Baucus. Unbeliveably enough, in a Time Magazine interview Baucus said that Merck, or I mean America, is not ready for single payer! Yes, one of the all time Freudian slips is found here:

KAREN TUMULTY: Karen Tumulty from Time Magazine. What about, I mean, the concepts that are in a number of plans including yours – would allow people to buy into a Medicare program or a Medicare-like program? You say nothing is off the table, I mean, where does single payer fit in to all of this?

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): I think single pay – Merck is not ready for single pay. I mean, America. We are a bit different than people in other countries. We are not Europe. We are not Canada. We are America. It is "go west, young man." It is entrepreneurialism. It is creativity. It is innovation and so forth. And I think we have come up with a uniquely American solution which is a combination of public and private, because we are America. I think that we would be spending capital inefficiently by trying to pursue a single pay system when we have another pathway to meet the health care reform available to us.

Source: http://thepolicycenter.wordpress.com...

Baucus had it right the first time: MERCK IS NOT READY FOR SINGLE PAYER and Merck pays for Baucus. This is part of the reason that the respected Policy Center on Health Care Research has called for Baucus to recuse himself on this issue:

The thepolicycenter.org believes that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) Should Recuse Himself From Any Health Care Financing Reform Leadership Position. Why? Because as the below article states "According to the Center for Responsive Politics, during 2003-2008, Max Baucus received $588,185 from the insurance industry and $523,313 from the pharmaceutical/health product industry. How can anyone including a U.S. Senator (Baucus) be an objective health care policy reformer when he has received over a million dollars from insurer and pharmaceutical organizations?

The answer to the question is that HE CANNOT be objective and should be removed or have the integrity to resign from any health care reform leadership position. I think that someone should explain the Term - CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST to him.

http://thepolicycenter.wordpress.com...

IV. What Can Be Done?
Do we Americans have to sit back idly doing nothing while our government is bribed by large corporations to take positions that are not progressive?

No we can stand up and take action. Here are some things we can do:

1. learn more about the health care situation and proported reforms. Study even those put forth by shills like Baucus so we understand what they are really intended to do and who is financing them;

2. follow "the money trail" as old time investigate reporters did so successfully in Watergate. This is easier to do today with websites like opensecrets. Also, ask your representatives the question directly: how much have you taken in from insurance companies, big pharmacy and other lobbyists on this issue?

3. write letters to your editor (for smaller papers it's even easier and more effective);

4. read and post on blogs like this one;

5. email your friends (it really is true that word of mouth is the most effective form of communication;

6. write and call your officeholders and put pressure on them;

7. talk to your union about your concerns and make sure they are doing something supportive of Rep. Conyer's bill;

8. call your local radio talk show and express your opinions on this issue; why let the conservatives dominate talk radio?

9. Then, here's my favorite as proposed by Russell Mokhiber the head of singlepayeraction.org Mokhiber first provides some background:

And here’s the situation in Washington. According to recent polling, 60 percent of Americans support Single Payer/Medicare for All. The majority of the doctors support it. The majority of the nurses support it. The majority of health economists support it.

So why isn’t it happening? It’s not happening because the legislation, single-payer legislation, would put the health insurance industry out of business. So, to be a player in Washington now, you have to kowtow to the powerful health insurance industry, and you have to say the following six words: "Single payer is off the table."

Now, who’s saying single payer is off the table? The health insurance industry, the Obama White House, the Democratic-controlled Congress, and most disgracefully, even some so-called public-interest groups like Health Care for America Now!

Mokhiber also pointed out a potentially very effective populist-progressive campaign to take the issue to the people and put the heat on our government:

So that’s why we’re creating singlepayeraction.org. We want to get a million people to sign up, and we want to have a direct confrontation with the health insurance industry and their lackeys in Congress. Take my district, the Second District of West Virginia. Shelley Moore Capito, moderate Republican, she comes from a coal state. She kowtows to the coal industry, no question. She takes—over ten years in Congress, she’s taken $290,000 from the mining industry. But she’s taken $300,000 from the insurance industry. So we’re going to get people in front of her office in Martinsburg and in front of her office in Charleston, and we are going to protest the fact that she has buckled to the insurance industry against the interests of her own constituents throughout the Second District.

...Now, there is an answer. The answer is not email campaigns. Congress is becoming immune to email campaigns. The answer is not letter writing. The answer is direct, face-to-face confrontation with the insurance industry and with Congress, with your members of Congress in your district. So we’re calling on Americans to sign up at singlepayeraction.org and to organize protests in front—get to know your district—your member of Congress district office. Probably less than five percent of Americans know where the district office of their member of Congress. Get to know it. Camp out there. Call the local media. The local media is going to love it. And let’s get this thing done. Let’s push through single payer for the American people, like the rest of the civilized world has.

Source: Amy Goodman on the same program referenced above on Democracynow.org

10. Note also that moveon.org has launched a campaign on single payer and health care reform:

"Who's the single greatest obstacle to real health care reform?

The insurance companies. They're working to cut the heart out of President Obama's health care plan, and they've already got Republicans and Democrats coming on board.

If progressives don't push back right now, health care reform could fail, just like it did in 1993. Or we could end up with "reform" that leaves the insurance companies in charge.

We've made a new TV ad that calls out the insurance industry for putting profits ahead of patient care, and supports the Public Health Insurance option that President Obama has proposed. If we can raise $100,000, we can run it nationally. The health care debate is heating up, and progressives need to join in."

Source: Moveon.org email to the author

So, a simple way to do something on this issue is to contact moveon.org, to contribute to their campaign by either working for it or contributing some $.

V. Other resources:
www.moveon.org

Physicians for a National Health Program, pnhp.org.

singlepayeraction.org

California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, nnoc.net.

And of course, Michael Moore's website at michaelmoore.com (which also deals with other issues)

An excellent starting point is also democracynow.org's recent programs on these issues as indicated in the diary.

I would like to recommend a thoughtful and fact laden article by Stephen Lendman, "Health Care Reform, Obama Style" in the Baltimore Chronicle at baltimorechronicle.com/2009/031109Lendman.shtml

Lendman:

goes over the sketchy details of what is known about Obama's proposal;
looks at Sibelius and DeParle (Obama's "dream team on health care reform). Some highlights:

Her private sector experience includes employment as managing director at CCMP Capital Advisors, senior advisor at JP Morgan Partners, the Covington & Burling law firm, the boards of Cerner Corporation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the DaVita Corporation, Medco Health Solutions, Boston Scientific, Triad Hospitals, as well as being a health care systems professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Even The New York Times remarked that "Obama (chose) to overlook Ms. DeParle's business ties that have a direct stake in the health-care debate....the White House instantly faced questions about whether her appointment was skirting the spirit, if not the letter, of the president's tough conflict-of-interest policy."

comments from Billy Tauzin (Big Pharma) on Obama's plan (they love it because they can sell more drugs);
shows the composition of the White Health Reform Forum (mostly big business and insurance leaders)
presents information on the media blackout of single payer.
Lendman's article is an essential read for anyone interested in the subject.
I also recommend FishFry's diary on single payer which can be found here on Dailykos: http://www.dailykos.com/...