I have had one of those weeks that you remember for the rest of your life. On Tuesday, I won a congressional election. On Thursday, I was sworn in by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and got to cast the first vote of my congressional career: a resolution honoring female veterans and military personnel. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to cast the most important vote of my 34 years in public service.

The health care reform bill that cleared the House yesterday, if approved by the Senate, will transform this country's health care delivery system. Denial of treatment for pre-existing conditions will be a thing of the past. None of us will have to worry that if we fail to report the chicken pox, we'll be denied treatment from our insurers for cancer. Out-of-pocket expenses will be capped and subsidies and tax breaks will be made available to consumers and small businesses. This combined with the reduction in administrative overhead costs, the savings associated with an emphasis on preventative medicine, and other measures will provide us as individual consumers and as a nation with substantial long term cost savings. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the health care reform bill will cut the deficit by over $30 billion over the next decade and will continue to create a surplus over the next 20 years.

Yesterday's plan also includes a public option that, while not as expansive I would have liked, is still very worthy of support. And as most of you are well aware, we had an unfortunate setback for women's health in yesterday's voting. But on the whole, this is change we can believe in.

When I was California's Insurance Commissioner, my staff fielded thousands of calls from California residents who fell victim to the insurance industry shenanigans. When large fires hit San Diego, Oakland, and elsewhere, hundreds of consumers were victimized a second time by their insurance companies. My capable staff was successful at coming to a consumer-friendly resolution for almost all cases, but at times, I had to personally ring up high ranking industry executives to use all forms of persuasion available to my office to make sure my constituents were treated fairly.

When one's business model depends on collecting monthly payments from people in the hope that you'll never have to provide them with the services they are paying you for, it's disappointing but not shocking that the insurance industry looks for loopholes to maximize its profits.

More over the flip...

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Cross-posted at Daily Kos and Open Left

The story that hasn't been told enough is that the rising cost of private insurance is hurting corporate America.  It's been a terrible strategic mistake.  Progressives could have a powerful ally in the fight against Big Insurance/PhRMA: Corporate America itself.

Consider that even Wal-Mart, which spends far less than its peers just to offer it's employees a junk insurance package, spent an average of $3,500 a year per employee on health insurance in 2002.  The way to beat UnitedHealth Care and Blue Blue Cross is by offering Wal-Mart a public plan that is cheaper, yet offers better benefits: Medicare for Anyone Who Wants It.  

Allowing any person, business or local/state agency to buy into Medicare is not single-payer, because it allows private insurance to continue to operate.  But unlike the other falsely-advertised "robust public options," Medicare for Anyone Who Wants It will actually lead to a public plan that covers at least 164 million Americans and will control cost.  It makes real the false rhetoric for the public option.

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Last night Survey USA and KPIX CBS 5 released a new poll showing that our campaign for Congress remains largely unchanged. With 25 percent of the vote, I still lead the pack, with Senator Mark DeSaulnier at 16 percent, Assemblymember Joan Buchanan at 12 percent, Anthony Woods at 9 percent, and undecided voters at 5 percent. This largely mirrors every publicly released poll since I entered the election.

Among Democrats, my lead is even starker: 37 percent favor me, 23 percent favor DeSaulnier, 18 percent favor Buchanan, 13 percent favor Woods, and only 2 percent are undecided. Most importantly, our great team of volunteers is effectively converting the support identified in the Survey USA and other polls into actual votes cast. Among those who have already voted, our considerable lead holds: 27 percent voted for me, 18 percent for DeSaulnier, 13 percent for Buchanan, and 10 percent for Woods.

Our lead holds among all demographic groups, including Obama voters, men, women, all age groups, all races, all levels of educational achievement, and all income levels. Our support is broad based and diverse. As the only candidate who has represented all corners of the 10th Congressional District, the voters know where I stand. As CBS 5 explained, "DeSaulnier and Buchanan have failed to make inroads since CBS 5's last poll 16 days ago."

Clearly, with Election Day fast approaching this Tuesday, we like where we stand.

The poll explains the what, but it fails to explain the why. I'm proud of the campaign we've run. We're convinced the polls are a reflection of voter support for a positive issues-based campaign that has emphasized solid Democratic principles and experience that can deliver results.

Health care over the flip...

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Please write your Congressperson NOW asking them to support the National Health Care Act, H.R. 676 as an alternative to wasteful and outrageous government gifting to well connected banks.

National Health Care Act, H.R. 676 includes:

   
• Comprehensive coverage for all, including doctor, hospital, long-term, mental health, dental and vision care as well as prescription drugs and medical supplies.
     
• No premiums, co-payments, or deductibles that inhibit access to care and unfairly burden the poor.
     
• Free choice of doctor and hospital and an end to insurance company and HMO dictates over patient care.
     
• Pays for itself by eliminating wasteful private insurance administration and profit. A progressive tax would replace what is currently paid out-of-pocket.
     
• Controls costs so benefits are sustainable through negotiated physician fees, global budgets for hospitals and bulk purchasing of prescription drugs and medical supplies.  A single-payer system would facilitate health planning to reestablish the balance between preventive and primary care on one hand, and high-tech tertiary care on the other.
  

Insurance companies have President Obama's ear. We don't.

It is urgent that people write their congressperson NOW to prevent a push towards "lock-in" that could prevent any change from ever happening at the Federal level and could prohibit the states from planning alternatives to federal endorsement of the WASTEFUL pirate insurance model.

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STUDY SHOWS MASSACHUSETTS' PLAN IS A FAILED MODEL FOR HEALTH CARE "REFORM":

A recent study shows that Massachusetts program forcing all citizens to buy for-profit health insurance is failing the poor, middle class and especially the chronically ill because they cannot afford the allegedly "fair" prices inevitably demanded by for-profit insurers. (The health insurance industry takes 33 cents out of every dollar spent in the United States on healthcare, trillions of dollars a year.) Plus, those who can't also afford prescription drug insurance are being price-gouged on prescription drugs.

BEGGING FOR REAL, NOT SIMPLY COSMETIC, "CHANGE":

A group of 500 Massachusetts doctors has sent a letter to the Obama administration begging that they stop holding up Massachusetts as a model of healthcare success, because the system is failing the middle class and all of the chronically poor whose incomes are more than three times the federal poverty line (which works out to around $66,000 for a family with four CHILDREN (my edit))

""Any plan that retains private insurers will add layers of bureaucracy and fail to control costs, dooming the noble effort to assure good care for all," the letter said.

The Massachusetts healthcare law essentially builds on the existing health insurance system, where most people obtain coverage through their employers. It requires virtually all people to buy insurance and provides limited assistance to those who cannot afford it. President Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus have endorsed aspects of the plan, making it likely to influence any effort to overhaul the national system.

The doctors' analysis -- written by Rachel Nardin, a neurologist and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, both primary care doctors and associate professors at Harvard Medical School -- questions the quality of data showing that all but 2.6 percent of Massachusetts residents have insurance, arguing the number is probably 5 percent or more.

The doctors also say that the new insurance available to lower middle class people imposes unaffordale out-of-pocket costs, particularly on the chronically ill. And they argue that because the new law is more expensive than anticipated, the state has prematurely cut funding for "safety net" providers who help the poor free of charge, leaving them without a last resort.

"Despite having health insurance, many Massachusetts residents cannot afford care," Nardin said at a press conference in Washington earlier today. She cited the example of a young diabetic from the Boston area whose costs went from nothing under the old "free care" system to $340 per month under the new law, consuming one-quarter of her take-home pay.

Asked how Congress and the White House might avoid Massachusetts' mistakes to create a better national system, Woolhandler and Nardin said the main lesson was that a Medicare-for-all style system is the only way to achieve universal health reform."

Thought that mandated health insurance in Massachusetts would include drug coverage? You were wrong.

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