Peter Roskam and His Party of Lies Poisoned the Wells in the Healthcare Reform Debate

On 02.16.10, In Economic Justice, Healthcare, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, By RSR

Republican Representative Peter Roskam appeared on the ever “fair and balanced” Fox and Friends this past Friday morning for another of his Fox-facilitated rants on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic partisanship. Take a look:

Roskam’s villainization of Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic efforts to achieve universal healthcare coverage is laughable.

Back in early 2009, after President Obama was sworn in, national support for healthcare reform was high. A CNN/Opinion Research Survey conducted in February 2009 found that 72% of Americans favored an increased roll for the government in healthcare, with 60% believing that the government should provide health insurance or healthcare to all Americans. In a Kaiser Foundation poll conducted the same month, 62% of respondents felt it was more important than ever to take on healthcare reform now and 72% of respondents trusted the recommendations of President Obama on healthcare reform. Even as late as June of 2009, in a Employee Benefit Research Institute poll, 83% of respondents favored a new government healthcare plan that anyone can purchase.

So Americans wanted healthcare reform and they even liked the idea of a public plan, and that left Roskam and the Reublicans in Congress with a dilemma. For political reasons, they needed Obama and the Democrats to fail so that Republican prospects would be better in the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond. And they needed to satisfy their financial backers in the big business lobbies and the healthcare companies that were opposed to reform. Last summer, Peter Roskam’s friend in the Senate, Jim DeMint, famously announced the GOP intent to have healthcare reform become President Obama’s “Waterloo”.

But how do you kill a popular program? The GOP decided to play on its strengths: to lie and sow fear and confusion about Democratic reform plans. And so they embarked on  a campaign of misinformation.

They engaged spin doctor Frank Luntz to craft talking points designed to scare the public about healthcare reform. The organized astroturf groups to spread misinformation and to fund and fan the flames of the paranoid, racist Tea Party movement. They used Republican-controlled Fox News to blare their anti-reform message 24 hours a day. And GOP members took to the airwaves themselves spouting lies about death panels, massive cuts to Medicare, uncontrolled spending, and a government takeover of healthcare complete with rationing.

Peter Roskam has been an enthusiastic participant in all of this. He’s been on local an national media constantly promulgating these lies and even used over a million dollars of taxpayer funds to blanket homes in the district with mailers – an average of about 11 per household in the 3rd quarter – as part of this partisan campaign.

Naturally, people are now suspicious.

Now the GOP has shifted to playing the role of being helpless victims of extreme Democratic partisanship. President Obama has offered a summit on healthcare in response to their pleas to be listened to and now, laughably, they are calling it a trap:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Apparent Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Peter Roskam and the GOP are liars. They are lying to kill healthcare reform because they want the President to fail and because their big corporate donors don’t want reform. And if their efforts to kill reform succeed, then Americans will continue to suffer and die for lack of coverage. And they are still gleeful about what they have done.

Because the GOP have demonstrated their unwillingness to be honest participants in formulating a workable reform plan, Democrats should make every effort possible to pass reform by reconciliation, ignoring the continued GOP effort to sabotage the process.

Peter Roskam’s conduct in all of this has been reprehensible – adolescent if not sociopathic. I sincerely hope that voters will see that and replace him this fall.

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

When it Comes to Healthcare, Peter Roskam Seeks Only Failure

On 11.09.09, In Healthcare, Peter Roskam, By RSR

Our Republican Congressman Peter Roskam appeared on WLS AM’s Roe Conn show this afternoon continuing his aggressive campaign to block any meaningful healthcare reform legislation. Here’s the audio:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Roskam is obviously pretty pleased with himself about his little theatrical performance with the handcuffs on the House floor the other day. Its a shame we have a Congressman who constantly resorts to stunts and party talking points to scare his constituents rather than engage in serious efforts to resolve the issues that are making their lives difficult. If Roskam gets his way on healthcare, it won’t be long until members of Congress are the only Americans who will be able to afford adequate care.

Roskam’s latest scare tactic is to talk about the individual mandate provision in the House bill that was passed on Saturday. The Republican party has decided that scaring the public about individual mandates to purchase healthcare insurance is the best means they have to kill health reform and Old Rubber Stamp has been quick to take that message on the road.  It wasn’t too long ago though that Republican leaders were talking about individual mandates as being a good thing – ensuring individual responsibility. Watch Republican Senator Charles Grassley extol the virtues of individual mandates on Fox News:

Individual mandates are a good thing because, without them, the cost of caring for people without insurance in emergency rooms raises the cost of health insurance for the rest of us – maybe as much as $1800 per year. People who can afford to obtain health insurance must do so as a matter of responsibility. Grassley says: “I believe there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.”

And listen to these guys talk about mandates – 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Grassley again, Republican Senator Bob Bennett, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, and former Republican Senate Majority leader Bill Frist:

But now Senators Grassley and Snowe and the rest of the party are opposing mandates. Grassley is questioning their constitutionality. Roskam is pulling out his handcuffs. What happened?

Well a couple of things, I think. As I have already suggested, the Republican Party has determined that this is the best strategy to kill health reform and cause the Democrats in Congress and the President to fail, and that is what they want more than anything else, even if it means the American people continue to suffer due to unmanageable healthcare expenses and lack of access to care. I think the other thing that’s operating here is the Democratic bill’s inclusion of effective insurance regulatory reform. Republicans would probably be very happy with mandates in a reform bill, if it didn’t come from the Democrats, and if it included massive insurance de-regulation as the present, Republican alternative bill does, without any public option to compete with private insurers. The health insurance industry supported mandates and have donated heavily to Republicans to get them included in any reform plan. But the public option was a buzzkill and so Republicans have reversed and are now attacking mandates.

The health insurance industry is isn’t anything like the bogeyman that some on the left portray it it to be.  It’s like any industry looking after its stockholders first and foremost, but trying to be competitive by offering a high-quality high-value product that consumers and employers will want to buy. The companies are staffed by honorable people who subscribe to the same plans that they sell. Most of the horror stories in the media involve gross distortions of insurers role in medical decision making and the size of the profit margins that companies earn on their products.

Because health insurers have built-in incentives to control medical cost while maintaining quality of care, I believe it is possible, and perhaps desirable, to build an effective universal coverage plan based the private sector. But such a plan can only succeed in providing affordable universal coverage if there are  effective individual and employer mandates, strong industry regulation, and a public option to fill in the gaps. Far from destroying, the private sector, CBO estimates that millions more Americans will obtain private coverage under the Democratic plan. And Roskam’s lies to the contrary, this plan does not involve the government taking control over 1/6 of the economy. Nothing changes hands. There is no nationalization of physician practices or hospitals or insurance companies. All that stays as it is now, in the private sector. This is not communism no matter what the teabaggers signs may say.

If the Republicans reject the individual mandate, there is still another option – single payer. But of course they reject that as well. They want only for reform to fail.

Rather than work seriously toward and effective solution to the nation’s healthcare crisis, Roskam and his Republican colleagues have offered a phony reform plan based in medical malpractice caps and insurance de-regulation that will do nothing to increase the proportion of Americans with health coverage based on CBO analysis. And if you like what Republican de-regulation has done for the banking industry, you’ll love what it does for healthcare.

One more point of correction for Peter Roskam on his statements on the radio today – Senator Lieberman has no conscience.

Tagged with: • • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Peter Roskam Votes Against Affordable Healthcare for Illinois

On 11.08.09, In Abortion, Healthcare, Peter Roskam, By RSR

Lots of folks have been hitting the site this morning looking for the results of last evenings historic House vote on H.R. 3962 – the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Fox News must still be devoting all their resources to round-the-clock coverage of Tuesday’s New Jersey gubernatorial contest so I guess I should put something up as a public service.

Well the news is mixed. First off, 6th District, your Republican Congressman, Peter Roskam, as usual, sided with the interests of big corporations over those of  his constituents who are being bankrupted and going without adequate healthcare. Peter Roskam voted against passage of H.R. 3962.

The measure passed by a vote of 220-215 with one lone Republican having the courage to stand up and do the right thing. That Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, has since been viciously attacked by the Teabaggers (H/T to Wonkette) whom Rep. Roskam and his party have allied themselves in their efforts to kill any meaningful healthcare reform:

anhcaotwit1

Thankfully, the Teabaggers are merely standing up for the freedom of all poor and middle class Americans to die an untimely death. Racism has in no way motivated their attacks on the President and his agenda for healthcare reform.

obamacareBut I digress.

The bill that Peter Roskam voted against will, if enacted, by CBO estimates provide health coverage to 96% of Americans and do so under the $900 billion threshold outlined by President Obama and will reduce the deficit to a greater degree than the phony reform alternative presented by Roskam and the desperate Republicans at the last minute.

Specific providions of the bill include:

  • The creation of a new national program to provide affordable coverage for those who can’t get health insurance today because of pre-existing conditions
  • Implementation of insurance reforms to enforce an 85% medical loss ratio – meaning that insurance companies must spend 85 cents out of every premium dollar on medical services
  • Coverage of young adults on their parents’ policies through age 26
  • Limits on pre-existing condition exclusions
  • A self-sustaining public insurance option (that is financed not by tax dollars but by insurance premiums) that provides an alternative to and competes on a level playing field with private health insurance companies
  • Elimination of the antitrust exemption for health insurers and medical malpractice insurers, increasing competition in the insurance marketplace and removing the shield that has allowed them to price fix, divide up territory, and effectively create monopolies in particular markets.
  • Establishment of a new essential benefit package that over time will become the minimum quality standard for employer plans. The basic package will include preventive services with no cost-sharing, mental health services, oral health and vision for children, and caps on the amount of money a person or family spends on covered services in a year.
  • Creation of a new, voluntary, public, long-term care insurance program to help purchase services and supports for people who have functional limitations. Individuals determined to need assistance because of functional limitations would qualify to receive a daily or weekly cash benefit to help purchase the services and supports needed to maintain personal and financial independence.
  • Provision of affordability credits to low- and moderate income individuals and families, up to 400% of the federal poverty level, to aid in the purchase of health insurance of their choosing through a new health insurance exchange that includes the public option.
  • Caps for annual out-of-pocket spending. Will cap annual out-of-pocket spending at a maximum of $5,000 per individual and $10,000 per family to prevent bankruptcies from medical expenses.
  • Expansion of Medicaid. Individuals and families with incomes at or below 150% percent of the federal poverty level will be eligible for an expanded and improved Medicaid program. Recognizing the budget challenges in many states, this expansion will initially be fully federally financed then transition to include a 9% contribution from states starting in 2015. To improve provider participation in this vital safety net – particularly for low-income children, individuals with disabilities and people with mental illnesses – reimbursement rates for primary care services will be increased to Medicare rates with new federal funding.
  • Improvements to Medicare. Senior citizens and people with disabilities will benefit from provisions that fill the donut hole over time in the Part D drug program, eliminate cost-sharing for preventive services, improve the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, increase access to primary care providers, and make other program improvements. The bill will also address future fiscal challenges by improving payment accuracy, encouraging delivery system reforms and extending solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund.

To make this all work the bill includes mandates: except in cases of hardship individuals must obtain insurance through their employer or independently. Assistance is providedfor those with low incomes. Care is made more affordable for everyone by increasing the size of the risk pool and by removing the antitrust exemption and providing public plan competition.  Employers must either provide insurance to their employees or contribute to the cost of their coverage through the public plan/exchange. Small businesses are exempted from this requirement.

Sadly, an amendment was offered and passed to the original legislation by pro-life Democrats which restricts the ability of women to obtain a plan that covers abortion services, even if they are purchasing the plan through the exchange with their own money. The Democratic leadership was forced to compromise and allow a vote on the amendment or the whole reform bill would have failed. It was a necessary compromise, I think, but a painful one. The provision is an affront to all women and makes a mockery of the Republican claims that their votes against healthcare reform are votes for freedom. This addition allows unwarranted interference by the state in the lives of women seeking a legal medical procedure.  Peter Roskam voted for the anti-choice amendment, even though he had no intention of voting for the final bill.

Difficult work lies ahead in reconciling this bill with Senate legislation and in passing a final conference report. But this was a big step.

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

Call Peter Roskam Today and Ask Him to Vote for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act

On 11.06.09, In Healthcare, Peter Roskam, By RSR

(202) 225-4561

Hey, miracles can happen. Maybe Peter was visited by three ghosts last night or something.

scrooge

The House is expected to vote on the bill on Saturday and  every vote is important.

So ask Roskam to vote in favor of the Democratic plan to ensure affordable healthcare coverage for all Americans and against the ridiculous Republican alternative that will result in higher premiums and watered down coverage and will actually increase the number of uninsured Americans. You can read a detailed summary of H.R. 3962 here.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Medical Association:

“On balance, H.R. 3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act, is consistent with our principles of pluralism, freedom of choice, freedom of physician practice and universal access. It will significantly expand health insurance coverage to Americans to empower patient and physician decision making; institute meaningful insurance market reforms; make substantial investments in quality; institute prevention and wellness initiatives; provide incentives to states that adopt certificate of merit and/or early offer liability reforms, and reduce administrative burdens.”

“H.R. 3962 is not the perfect bill, and we will continue to advocate for changes, but it goes a long way toward expanding access to high-quality affordable health coverage for all Americans, and it would make the system better for patients and physicians,” Dr. Rohack said. “This is not the last step but the next step toward health system reform. We will remain actively engaged with patients, physicians, Congress and the administration to ensure that the final bill results in marked improvements to our health system.”

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP):

AARP Chief Executive A. Barry Rand said the organization supports the House bill over other proposals because the measure does more to lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, strengthen Medicare and bar insurance companies from denying people coverage because of their health or age. The bill also would lower premiums for Americans ages 50 to 64 who have to buy insurance in the private market and would create a voluntary long-term care insurance program.

“Under the House plan… insurance companies will not be able to reject you or charge you an outrageous premium because you got sick once, you may get sick again, you lost your job, you’re over 50 years old or because your employer dropped your coverage,” Rand said at the briefing. “Millions of Americans will start to regain control over their lives.”

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Cancer Society:

The insurance reforms proposed in the Affordable Health Care for America Act represent a tremendous improvement over the current system. Cancer patients and survivors will no longer face the loss of affordable coverage due to their illness. These critical changes include:

  • Elimination of the use of pre-existing medical conditions and health status in determining insurance premium rates, and limiting rating differential to 2:1 on the basis of age, geography, and family size only;
  • Guaranteed issue and renewal of insurance policies, and the elimination of rescissions except in the case of fraud; ? Elimination of annual and lifetime benefit caps;
  • Establishment of a national health insurance exchange to facilitate access and affordability;
  • Provision of premium subsidies for low- and middle-income families;
  • And limits on out-of-pocket expenses.

ACS CAN supports the national approach to health insurance exchanges. We believe that a national model can greatly facilitate making quality, affordable health care more uniform across the country over time. We support the subsidies covering individuals and families up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Health insurance is essential to good health, and it is imperative that we not put low- and middle-income individuals and families in a position where the cost of insurance threatens their financial viability.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Academy of Family Physicians:

Family physicians particularly appreciate that the revised legislation would provide health insurance coverage for some 96 percent of Americans and would reduce the federal deficit by $30 billion. It is particularly noteworthy that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the revised bill would also lower health care costs overall by accelerating the applicability of the medical home and other health care delivery improvement models.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the Consumers Union:

In addition to key consumer protections that eliminate current anti-consumer practices like excluding applicants who have pre-existing conditions, the bill makes health insurance more affordable and secure. It includes a wealth of major health reforms—far too many to single them all out. We particularly support:

  • the provision on comparative effectiveness research, which will help consumers and their medical providers better determine the most effective treatment options;
  • public reporting of health-care acquired infection rates: public disclosure will help consumers and providers focus on reducing these deadly infections, which are killing 100,000 Americans per year;
  • a new public health insurance option in a National Health Insurance Exchange.

Of course the bill has not been endorsed by angry teabaggers:

obama=nazi

Who will Peter Roskam listen to?

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • •
 
2 Comments
Leave A Response

Idiotic Republican Healthcare Plan INCREASES Numbers of Uninsured, Saves Less

On 11.05.09, In Healthcare, Peter Roskam, By RSR

Well we’ve listened to Peter Roskam for months badmouthing Democratic efforts to address the nation’s growing healthcare crisis. During that time what’s been missing is Roskam’s own plan to make healthcare affordable and available to all Americans.

johnboehner

Well the wait is over and the plan is in. And it is really, really stupid.

It came the other day in the form of an ammendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, offered  House Minority Leader and Chief Idiot John Boehner. The Boehner ammendment essentially replaces all of the provisions of that bill, the House Democratic plan, with a great big Christmas present to the healthcare industry.

Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which Peter Roskam has repeatedly cited as authoritative in discussing the Democratic plans, released its evaluation of the Boehner ammendment. You can read the whole thing here.

Essentially though, the CBO finds that the Republican plan would actually increase the number of Americans with no health insurance coverage by 2019 when population growth is considered. The CBO found that the Republican plan would make it possible for only an additional 3 million Americans to obtain health coverage (compared to 34 million for the House Democratic plan) making not even a dent in the percentage of American without coverage. 17% now. 17% in 2019. This compared with the Democratic plan which reduces the percentage of uninsured to 4% in the same period.

Ironically, the Republican plan will only cut the deficit by $68 billion, compared to $104 billion for the Democratic plan.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein sums it up well:

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It’s already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It’s already made its compromises with reality. It’s already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans.

The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It’s one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It’s another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren’t even totally sure how to play the game. The Democratic plan isn’t perfect, but in comparison, it’s looking astonishingly good.

Key to the Republican plan are a couple of provisions that Peter Roskam likes to tout:  capping damages in medical malpractice cases and allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines.  These are huge gifts to the healthcare industry which has poured so much money into the campaign coffers of Roskam and other Republicans. They are also huge mistakes.

Capping malpractice damages would effectively immunize healthcare provider conglomerates against negative consequences when they screw up. This would reduce the incentive that healthcare providers currently have to improve quality and prevent errors and would leave consumers who are harmed by medical errors or negligence with little recourse.

Allowing policies to be sold across state lines would mean that health insurers would flock to jurisdictions where insurance regulations are minimal. Premiums would rise and benefit plans would shrink. Consumers will pay more for health insurance and get less.

Tagged with: • • • • • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

Why Are My Tax Dollars Being Used for Peter Roskam’s Campaign Mail?

On 10.11.09, In Healthcare, Peter Roskam, By RSR

Roskam_mailer_2009109_1_sm

I received this expensive-looking over sized mailer from Peter Roskam a couple of days ago. Says it contains “important facts and information”. “Dated information”, it tells me, “read today”. This must be it. This must be Peter Roskam’s plan to make sure that all Americans receive adequate quality healthcare. Maybe he’s finally doing the job we pay him for. Maybe he’s studied the situation and decided a public option makes sense after all. Lets see.

Roskam_mailer_2009109_2_sm

Nope. No plan here.  Just a picture of Peter with an ugly tie. Says he wants “real bipartisan reforms”. Doesn’t want a public option – that would put bureaucrats in charge of my family’s healthcare.  Hmm. That sounds a lot like the same old crap we’ve been hearing from the Republicans who’ve been trying to block healthcare reform in Congress. “Bipartisan” means do whatever we want and what our campaign donors from the healthcare industry want or else. Says the status quo is unacceptable. Things must change by remaining exactly the same, withour healthcare in the hands of giant corporations. Not a government plan like in those commie countries – like England and Switzerland.

There’s another picture of Peter smiling next to a nurse taking a small child’s blood pressure while mom looks on. Everybody is smiling. Blood pressure taking is fun.  (We hear from usually reliable sources at the hospital that Peter devoured this child for lunch moments after the picture was taken – solving the healthcare crisis one child at a time).

There’s a note under the photo that brags about Peter’s $1.1 million in earmarks for local healthcare facilities since 2007. Yes, that’ll solve the problem. Well maybe Peter’s plan is on page 3. Let’s take a look.

Roskam_mailer_2009109_3_sm

Well this looks familiar. We’ve seen this before. Over and over. Pretty nebulous. Doesn’t say anything concrete about what he’s going to do this year to ensure that those people without health insurance can get coverage and those who have it can get covered for pre-existing conditions or deal with increasingly unaffordable co-payments and deductibles and how they can keep insurance when they lose or leave their job. Maybe that’s on the next page. Lets see.

Roskam_mailer_2009109_4_sm

No its not here.  Just some stuff telling me that this was paid for with my money. And instructions on how to get hold of Peter if I need help.

I guess that must be the plan. If you don’t have insurance, if your coverage is being denied because of a pre-existing condition, if your deductibles are too high, if you want to move to a new job but can’t afford to lose your insurance – just call Peter Roskam’s office and he will help you. (630) 893-9670. I guess its not really the plan I hoped for.

So, I have to say, this pretty much looks like a campaign piece. There’s really no information here. This is Peter Roskam using his constituents hard-earned money to lobby them in order to defeat the Democratic healthcare reform plan that would otherwise benefit them. That’s pretty twisted. But then so is Roskam.

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response
Page 1 of 212
Go To Top »

Meta

Installed by SimpleScripts