Health Care Reform Gets Underway in the US Senate
Posted April, 21 2009 by arianne
Today, the Senate Finance Committee convened its first of three roundtable discussions on health care reform. Opening statements by the Committee Chairs, Max Baucus and Charles Grassley restated the need for reform and called for collaboration to resolve the health care delivery system.
The next two roundtables will be on coverage and benefits (week of May 5th) and funding (week of May 19th). The “mark up” process is expected to be conducted in June, with an eye to having formal legislation finalized in August. Similar conversations are occurring on the house side across three committees of jurisdiction: Ways and Means; Energy and Commerce; and Health Education and Labor.
Read the participant’s testimonies from today’s roundtable here.
2 Comments
Arthur Springer • Apr.28.2009 at 04:04:am
Move On, Move On
Date: April 27, 2009 10:46:54 PM EDT
To: “Patrick Schmitt, MoveOn.org Political Action”
Subject: dealbreaker
Is the public option “the central fight in the debate over health care reform?”
No.
The central issue is not a public option but whether everyone will be shoved into an authoritarian managed care program and denied access to competent specialists when we need them. Any proposal that denies the right to see a competent specialist for a chronic, disabling or rare health problem is unacceptable. Any proposal that forces more than 100 million Americans into managed care is a dealbreaker. Any proposal that would downgrade care for a very large number of Americans will crash and burn.
Want to know what Obama will do? Look at his March 5 “summit.” The managed care lobby was there in full force. But representatives of about 125 million Americans with chronic conditions weren’t even invited. No thanks.
Arthur Springer • May.23.2009 at 10:42:am
COMMENT ON BOSTON GLOBE OP-ED ARTICLE
Held hostage by the health system
By Dr. Marcia Angell
May 23, 2009
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/05/23/held_hostage_by_the_health_system/?comments=
all#addComm
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as99 wrote:
The Obama Admnistration’s health “reform” campaign that started out as a noble idealistic venture has degenerated into a life-and-death struggle against the bugger-thy-neighbor special interests that are promoting a politically correct and HMO correct set of “reforms.” When one’s very survival is at stake, it is not rational to let status and decorum stand in the way of truth. So it is, with sadness, that I wish a severe disability on Marcia Angell so that she may learn some things she clearly does not know about health care. She probably has the gold-plated coverage enjoyed by most of the political class and other members of the affluent elite. Nevertheless, she can still learn that specialty medicine and state-of-the-art high-tech diagnosis is a blessing, and not the instrument of greed she in her ignorance, believes it to be. So I wish upon her new experience and knowledge rather than the prejudice, discrimination, vendetta and propaganda stance she embodies as a leader of her special interest. No, I will not have my survival threatened by the likes of Angell or any of her political allies. May they suffer and learn from it.
5/23/2009 11:13 AM EDT