The High Price of Snowe

[joeycola]

Good for Kerry for trying.


http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/10/05/the-high-price-of-snowe/


The High Price of Snowe
By: Jon Walker Monday October 5, 2009 11:32 am

The public option has gotten most of the attention as of late, but sacrificing it is only the tip of the iceberg for Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Snowe is not just on the wrong side of the issue on the public option, she is demanding several incredibly bad provisions ans policies be part of a health care bill in order for it to garner her support.

Sen. John Kerry wanted the Senate Finance Committee bill to give the new exchanges some power to bargain with insurers. This would likely help reduce the price of insurance on the exchange. It is something that is part of all the bills that passed the four other committees. Why did Kerry's amendment fail?

The reason, several sources on Capitol Hill say, was opposition from Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who also sits on Senate Finance. Snowe seems to be concerned that a more aggressive exchange would amount to more government--which, in fact, it would be. But, as Massachusetts has shown, sometimes more government is exactly what health care needs.

Snowe almost singlehandedly made the exchange worthless.

Jon Kingsdale, who runs the Massachusetts exchange, calls that a recipe for "policy disaster," as consumers faced a dizzying array of more expensive, less regulated choices. "It would be like telling your grocery store they have to offer every single kind of bread baked by every single bakery. . . . The exchanges would be nothing more than an automated Yellow Pages."

This is not the only time that Snowe has demanded an awful policy change. Unlike the other bills, the Senate Finance Committee bill does not have an employer mandate. Instead, it has a form of “free rider” provision, which makes companies who don't provide insurance pay a fine for each employee who gets tax credits to buy health insurance. Besides being a bureaucratic nightmare to enforce, it could have serious negative consequences for low income job seekers. For some reason, Snowe wants this bad free rider provision instead of an employer mandate.

A worthless trigger instead of a public option, weak, poorly regulated exchanges, the terrible “free rider” provisions--these bad policies might all be part of reform legislation in order to win Olympia Snowe. (I think we will be finding out for months what other bad ideas Snowe demanded be part of the bill.) In an effort to win Snowe health care reform is being crippled. Winning her could cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars and regular American families a few thousand a year in higher premiums. Is one Republican vote really worth the high price of Snowe?

[midnight]

1. Scrap both employer mandate and free rider, and provide

single payer. Remove the private insurance co. It is a bad model for providing affordable medical coverage.

[geckosfeet]

2. Remove all insurance requirements. Provide public health care.

[quantass]

3. Geez why is it more complicated than it needs to be...oh yes...someone has to make money. nt

[joeycola]

4. The mantra of how complicated it is used by Dems a lot. It tends

to shut down conversation==which is what they want.

[joeycola]

5. The mantra of how complicated it is used by Dems a lot. It tends

to shut down conversation==which is what they want.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Democrats have spent FAR too much time trying to make her happy. Put pressure on her in her state.

[karynnj]

7. Given that the provision is in all the other bills and because

Kerry likely had close to enough support even in the Finance committee, which is more conservative than the rest of the Senate, this will likely be retained from the HELP bill in the final Senate bill. The bad thing is that including it likely could have led the CBO to price the entire thing lower.

Snowe really is hurting things here and on the rider. It seems that she may do more damage than the wingnuts on the committee who had all their ideas rejected. It is also not clear that after these changes, she will vote for it.