blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Because Montana is Max Baucus's home state, that's why.
Rough sailing ahead for health care reform, but it’s not our only option
excerpts
Aside from being known as one of the most prolific producers of lobbyists from among his staffers in the Senate, Baucus is probably best known as one of Obamacare’s prime architects.
Baucus is right to worry that the law may in fact run into extreme turbulence. It is far too complex. It has too many moving and interdependent parts to be smoothly implemented by anybody, no matter how talented or highly motivated, and it is too controversial.
There are a lot of people in and out of Congress — about 50 percent of Americans, according to the latest polls — who do not want to see the law implemented and will find ways to sabotage it. The law itself provides no shortage of opportunities to do so.
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There are lots more unknowns, but you get the idea. Complexity, not implementation, is the underlying pathology of Obamacare. Congress, not the administration, bears the brunt of the responsibility for that.
Mr. Baucus surely knew about this at the time of the law’s passage. After his own constituents in Libby, Mont., became uninsurable by private insurance due to industrial pollution with carcinogens and were unable to get the courts to hold the polluters responsible, Baucus came to the rescue. He simply tucked a little provision into the massive health reform bill making affected Montanans eligible for — you guessed it — Medicare.
No health insurance exchanges for these hardworking folks. Nothing but the best for Libby. By taking the simple, direct and most efficient route to expanding health-care coverage, Mr. Baucus did the right thing by his constituents. But Baucus made sure that everybody else had to settle for Obamacare.
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/05/...alth-care-reform-but-its-not-our-only-option/
Physician Philip Caper of Brooklin is a founding board member of Maine AllCare, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group committed to making health care in Maine universal, accessible and affordable for all.
Rough sailing ahead for health care reform, but it’s not our only option
excerpts
Aside from being known as one of the most prolific producers of lobbyists from among his staffers in the Senate, Baucus is probably best known as one of Obamacare’s prime architects.
Baucus is right to worry that the law may in fact run into extreme turbulence. It is far too complex. It has too many moving and interdependent parts to be smoothly implemented by anybody, no matter how talented or highly motivated, and it is too controversial.
There are a lot of people in and out of Congress — about 50 percent of Americans, according to the latest polls — who do not want to see the law implemented and will find ways to sabotage it. The law itself provides no shortage of opportunities to do so.
---
There are lots more unknowns, but you get the idea. Complexity, not implementation, is the underlying pathology of Obamacare. Congress, not the administration, bears the brunt of the responsibility for that.
Mr. Baucus surely knew about this at the time of the law’s passage. After his own constituents in Libby, Mont., became uninsurable by private insurance due to industrial pollution with carcinogens and were unable to get the courts to hold the polluters responsible, Baucus came to the rescue. He simply tucked a little provision into the massive health reform bill making affected Montanans eligible for — you guessed it — Medicare.
No health insurance exchanges for these hardworking folks. Nothing but the best for Libby. By taking the simple, direct and most efficient route to expanding health-care coverage, Mr. Baucus did the right thing by his constituents. But Baucus made sure that everybody else had to settle for Obamacare.
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/05/...alth-care-reform-but-its-not-our-only-option/
Physician Philip Caper of Brooklin is a founding board member of Maine AllCare, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group committed to making health care in Maine universal, accessible and affordable for all.