The employees of large health insurance companies are worried about facing real competition that is accountable to the public, and not quarterly profit reports. They’re worried that a real public option that is accountable to the people, and not Wall Street will end the party where they get bonuses and glowing performance evaluations for denying the sick the care they need. Today, the leadership of the House of Representatives took a strong stand for the American people and a strong stand against big insurance companies.

The era of insurers discriminating against certain Americans because they happen to have a gene that causes a severe illness will end when the President signs the House’s health care reform bill. The House bill would ban discrimination against those Americans who suffer from severe illnesses:

“Every American who receives coverage through the Exchange will have a plan that includes standardized, comprehensive and quality health care benefits.

It will end increases in premiums or denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, race, or gender, and strictly limit age rating.”

The era of insurers padding their profits by delaying and denying necessary care; the era of insurers stopping a blind woman from maintaining her limited sight when she hits her “benefit maximum;” and the era of Americans being bankrupted by sky-high copays will end with this legislation.

“The proposal will also eliminate co-pays for preventive care, and cap out-of-pocket expensesto protects every American from bankruptcy.”

Further, the House bill holds insurance companies accountable for their behavior. If the House bill is enacted, insurers that deny the claims of American patients will be held accountable by a newly established consumer advocacy agency. This agency will help Americans navigate the intentionally byzantine insurance appeals process, and help patients and doctors take control of medical decisions.

This is happening because a small group of progressives stood up to powerful special interests–and won. The bill is not everything progressives want. The rates are not tied to the Medicare fee schedule, but they are negotiated nationally and will therefore provide stiff–and deserved–competition to the insurance industry. The subsidies, especially in the Senate’s version of the bill, could be improved. But the fact remains that the bills unveiled by the leadership of the Senate and House this are good, but imperfect bills which provide a solid foundation for a better health care system.

Now this blog is finally retired. I’ve said my piece about health care reform. It’s getting to the point where I’m repeating myself, and I want to do other things in my spare time. Tonight, I think I’ll watch the World Series! Thanks again for reading.

Just two weeks ago, the New Haven Register reported that Lieberman would allow an up or down vote on health care reform to occur, even if he opposed the underlying bill:

Lieberman said he was “inclined to let the motion to proceed” (or cloture) go forward, but “I haven’t decided yet.”

He said he and others would attempt to negotiate changes in the bill before there is a filibuster.

But today, Lieberman changed his mind, and joined Republican obstructionists who would rather hand a stinging defeat to the President of the United States than address the glaring problems of our time. A mere 20 hours after Harry Reid included a watered down, compromise version of a public option in the final health care bill, Joe Lieberman joined the Republicans in protecting the sordid status quo in the American health care system:

“I also told him that if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage. Therefore I will try to stop the passage of the bill.”

By joining the Republican health care road block, Joe Lieberman is standing up for a system which harms Americans. Joe Lieberman is standing up for a system where a cancer patient is prevented from having a life-saving surgery because she forgot to tell her insurance company about a previous case of acne. Joe Lieberman is standing up for a system where a teenage HIV patient can be wrongly denied life-saving medications by his insurer because he, not knowing of about his HIV status, committed the crime of donating blood. Joe Lieberman is standing up for a system where a Lupus patient can end up falling through the cracks before, after hundreds of thousands of dollars of preventable treatments billed to the government, she dies at the age of 32 of what her doctor called “complications secondary to a failed health care system.” Joe Lieberman is defending a system where insurance bureaucrats in some cubicle overrule the world’s foremost experts on organ transplants, and delay a procedure so long that the patient dies in surgery.

And Joe Lieberman is protecting a system that encourages–and rewards–the insurance bureaucrats responsible for such outrageous stories. Joe Lieberman is defending a health care system that allows a major insurer in California to link performance evaluations to the purging of policyholders with serious conditions. And Joe Lieberman is defending a health care system where an insurance bureaucrat who keeps the cancer patients out of the chemo ward is rewarded with five figure bonuses.

This is the moral issue of our lives. This is about taking power away from insurance bureaucrats who, in the words of fellow Senate moderate Diane Feinstein, “have no moral compass,” and putting it into the hands of the people. It’s about removing the road blocks that greedy insurance bureaucrats have put up to keep Americans from getting to the doctor. Simply put, it’s about putting patients before profits.

To put it in words that Senator Lieberman can probably understand: you’re either with us or against us on this.

Individual states may be able to opt out of the public option. But that process will require state level politicians to take a stand against expanding access to health insurance and for continuing the broken system of insurers paying bonuses to employees who deny the sick the care they need. It’s unlikely that state-level politicians would take this path; and even if they do, voters have the ability to hold them accountable at the ballot box.

By taking this strong stand, over the objections of the White House and the powerful health insurance industry lobby, Harry Reid is ensuring that millions of Americans will be able to access the doctor. He’s ensuring that cancer patients will no longer have to fight with their insurance company over unjust denials, and will instead be able to focus on beating their disease.

This won’t happen because of the specific provisions in the public option. But it’ll happen because who the American health care system is accountable to will fundamentally change if the Senate passes the health care bill that Senator Reid outlined this afternoon. As it is, insurers are accountable to Wall Street investment firms and big banks. These massive shareholders increase their own dividends by relentlessly pressuring big insurers to cut expenses–even when expenses are chemotherapy for a cancer patient.

If the Senate follows Senator Reid’s strong leadership on this issue, the system will be accountable to the people again. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be profits, and the salaries of insurance CEOs will still be obscene. Big insurance will be riddled with people who, in the words of Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), have no moral compass. These people will try to get a leg up by knocking down the meekest among us.

But the system will no longer be accountable only to industry and Wall Street insiders. The moral component of insurance–that we all have an interest in spreading risk and sharing the burden for those of us who become ill–will not longer be an after-thought confined to college textbooks on actuarial science. Instead, the health care system will ultimately be accountable to the people.

If an insurance company rescinds a policy, denies a needed treatment, or otherwise makes life difficult for people suffering from life-threatening illnesses –and they all do this daily at the moment–they will be held accountable to elected officials, and not quarterly reports and the daily vacillation of stock prices. The insurance bureaucrat who is more worried about her own bonus than the morality of our health care system will no longer be the most powerful person in health care.

Patients, who currently don’t know where or how to appeal denials to, will have a clear path towards holding insurance executives accountable for their wrong doings: calling your Congressman. And that is the fundamental change that Senator Harry Reid is poised to bring about with his impressive, unforeseen, and brilliant leadership on this issue. Because of Harry Reid’s decision, millions of Americans will get to go to the doctor, thousands of doctors will no longer have to deal with insurance bureaucrats in some cubical thousands of miles away overruling their decision, and tens of thousands of lives that otherwise would’ve fallen through the cracks of our current health care system will be saved. Well done, Senator Reid. Well done.

It’s the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it always hurts less than doing the wrong thing.

It is tempting–and too easy–to blame Harry Reid for the current situation. But the reality is that the insurance industry and their Wall Street backers are spending $1.4 million a day lobbying against health care reform. They paid a well known political hack–former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey–to write an editorial claiming that a great provision of health care reform–a provision which would allow Medicare to reimburse individuals for living will consultations–would somehow create “death panels.”

Then came August, August, and a month of industry funded groups busing in a small minority of crazed citizens to audition for the role of Richard Henne’s sidekick on a bad reality TV show. The media couldn’t resist the pointless spectacle, and negative stories about health care reform dominated an entire month. Even so, 60% of the public still supported a public option–the key component of progressive health care reform.

So the industry decided to release a report claiming that health care reform would cause premiums to rise. The study was so widely panned that even the organization the health insurance industry paid to write it backed away from it.

Since then Harry Reid has shown a willingness to fight the health insurance industry. Harry Reid is fighting an industry which actively tries to purge ill policyholders, an industry which denies a cancer patient a needed surgery because she failed to disclose a previous case of acne, which which makes it impossible for people with serious, but treatable, chronic illnesses to obtain health insurance (and therefore access to health care), an industry which seeks to prevent newborn babies from obtaining health insurance because they are either too heavy or too light an industry which has defined domestic violence and rape as pre-existing conditions and therefore prevented victims from obtaining much-needed treatment.

After taking all of these immoral actions, health insurance executives see nothing wrong with rewarding employees who do the dirty work of denying people medical care with bonuses and good performance evaluations. Health insurance CEOs also then reward themselves with seven, eight, and even nine figure salaries. Well compensated CEOs and high level executives then turn around and donate a small portion of their salary to powerful politicians.

This makes changing American health care reform for the better, and putting patients before profits the most difficult thing to get through Congress. Every Democratic President since Franklin D. Roosevelt has thought about reforming health care. With the exception of Lyndon Johnson, who got Medicare passed, they’ve all failed. While Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are showing a willingness to take on an out-of-control industry, the President himself has stayed on the sidelines, too wary of the power of the insurance industry to stand up for a public option behind the scenes.

Harry Reid is a politician who got his start by taking on the mob in Nevada. A crook Reid helped send to jail even placed a bomb on his car. Now, having reached the height of his political career, Harry Reid is again fighting the good fight against a powerful special interest on behalf of the people.

If Senator Reid is successful in including a public option in the health care legislation that passes the Senate, insurers will finally be held accountable by the public. The days of denying care because someone they’re sick will be over. The days of making huge profits off of keeping a cancer patient out of the operating room will end. And the days of people not being able to go to the doctor because they are too poor to afford the dignity of medical care will end.

Senator Reid’s leadership on this issue has been impressive. Progressives should thank him. The President’s failure to take on vested special interests is disappointing. Progressives should remind the President that the American people put him in office to take on powerful lobbyists and fight for a policy which would put patients before profits. Progressives should ask the President to seize the moment and ensure that the health care reform legislation he signs this Fall will include a strong public option.

A couple weeks later,Robert Gibbs chimed in by claiming that the White House shouldn’t dictate Congress’ decision on a public option. David Axelrod chimed in with a quote referring to the fact that the health care bill will “include the spirit of the public option.” Those two quotes went over so well Axelrod himself was walking it back a mere week later.

Then the President himself didn’t even bother to pick up the phone and lobby Senators on behalf a policy he’s called the “best way to achieve his health care goals.” This has lead Senator Jay Rockefeller, and other progressives, to be baffled at the White House’s actions.

Then Axelrod, Rahm Emmanuel, and Valarie Jarret tried bury the public option again 6 weeks later. They were rebuffed health care reform supporters making 300,000 calls to Congress in a single day, and by the fact that 80% of those calls directly asked members of Congress to support a public option.

Now the President told Harry Reid, who of all people was prepared to make a strong stand for the public option in the Senate, not to bother with it because President Senator Olympia Snowe might not like Reid’s policy preferences. And within hours, the White House was yet again walking a disastrous trial balloon aimed at killed the public option back.

There is a pattern here. Five times senior administration officials–four on the record, one as an anonymous quote–have attempted to kill the public option. And five times they’ve been forced to walk it back for two simple reasons: first, the public option is good public policy; second, the public option is supported by 60 to 65 percent of the American public, and even picks up significant support from rank-and-file Republicans.

I hope that one day soon the administration will realize that opposing 2/3rds of the public on a key issue in order to not upset powerful politicians and special interests is bad politics. I hope they will stop banging their head against the wall, and realize that serving the President means fighting to include his best interests in the final legislation. A strong public option is in the President’s best interests. Simply put, Americans are tired of being squeezed while the powers that be party as if nothing ever happened.

When a President can’t stick up for something that 3/5ths to 2/3rds of the American people support, but insists that he “believes in” bottom-up democracy, something isn’t right. If the President continues this horrid decision making–when he defers to a Senator just over 1/1000th of the American public voted for in order to please beltway pundits and their dreams of bipartisanship even if it comes at the expense of canning good policy, then the people will inevitably elect another President in 4 years. The public might well just decided to elect Olympia Snowe President since she is, thanks to the President’s inability to stand up to the powerful on behalf of the people.

Update: The White House is walking back this trial balloon. By my count that’s at least the 5th time they’ve tried to leak word of the public option’s demise only to be forced it back by outrage from 2/3rds of the public. Perhaps it’ll one day dawn on the people in the West Wing that having 2/3rds of the public on your side is a good thing. That day can’t come soon enough–for the American people and President Obama.

But Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America who attended the event with Obama, says the paymaster’s decision could doom the idea. That’s because community bankers will be loath to take TARP funds if they think Feinberg will set their pay.

“They’ll say, ‘I’m not going to touch the TARP, or the government’s going to come down on my pay,’” Fine said.

Once again, Wall Street doesn’t think about what is good for the country–increasing lending to small businesses, even if it means forgoing those $3,000 brunches, ultimately helps everyone. The creation of new jobs means people can meet their mortgages, buy new cars, and pay off past debts. Unfortunately, Wall Street is so focused on itself that it cannot see the forrest through the government-funded money tree.

I’m not sure which item was the straw which broke the camel’s back, but it appears that the administration is finally going to take on arrogant, out of touch, and elitist Wall Street bankers. Today, in a long overdue move, the President ordered a steep salary cut at bailed out banks. While far from perfect–this plan doesn’t address stock options strongly enough–this is a solid start in making sure that taxpayer funds aren’t used to subsidize the outlandish lifestyles of Wall Street’s elite. Simply put, a banker who ultimately draws their salary from the taxpaying public shouldn’t be spending $3,000–an amount which could feed a family of four for several months–on a single brunch.

But the President’s attack on the arrogance of Wall Street didn’t end with measures aimed at curbing excessive salaries. The President told the big banks that they had a chance to use TARP funds properly, and lend to American small businesses. Since these bailed out firms have utterly failed to extend credit to small businesses–the engine of the American economy–the President took matters into his own hands. The President ordered that the $374 billion which remains in the TARP fund be used to extend loans to small businesses.

This is a solid plan. It will help millions of small businesses meet their payroll. And it’ll enable American entrepreneurs to start new businesses and create new jobs. Ultimately, this will help build a solid foundation for a period of sustained economic growth.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t continued problems. A report released today by the administration’s bank watchdog says that the Treasury Department has failed to be transparent about exactly where the public largess is going. And over the counter derivatives, the vehicle which was the direct cause of this crisis, are still not regulated at all.

An excellent program on PBS last night showed that the people who created this mess–namely Larry Summers and Tim Geithner–are still at the heart of power. While the woman who foresaw the disaster, and stood up to the very powerful in a strong, but ultimately failed, attempt to avert the disaster is still on the sidelines. Brooksley Born may be a loyalist to Hillary Clinton, but her stellar performance in the Clinton administration as Chairwoman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and her willingness to stand up to–instead of kiss up to–big Wall Street power brokers would make her a fantastic Secretary of the Treasury.

Still, the administration–which, it should be noted, still includes Secretary Geithner–should be commended for its strong actions to reign in Wall Street greed and jump start American small businesses. This is the proper economic policy, and one that will ultimately help millions of Americans build better futures.