Wow, I really admire your devotion to this, Meiguo!! As much as I care about this bill, I never downloaded the whole thing and never really intended to read it in its entirety!
I appreciate your comments, and agree that now that it's "the law of the land", all of us should have a balanced mind to think about what it really means to all of us. Yes, we might also be exempt from it just like the "upper level congressional leaders and their staffers" because we have "better coverage", but I would still be bothered if this is indeed the case.
What worries me the most, is the huge additional expenses on all the governmental functions that will be created to "implement" this whole thing. All the people who have "pre-existing conditions" and "high risk" categories have to be tracked and somehow categorized, everyone has to report (on their tax form, I guess) what kind of insurance they have purchased and if they don't, they'll be tracked down and a fine will be issued. In this sense, I actually would rather have a "single payer" option, because that way you just deal with one new system, and don't have to worry about all these additional layers of bureaucracies.
I agree with Xi An that Obama's timing for this whole thing is kind of off, although I understand why he's so eager to accomplish this before everything else. Now that he has this under his belt, I'm sure he'll turn to other things, such as China-US trade relations (by the way, Pelosi's probably one of the most anti-China, anti-free trade democratic leaders out there), immigration, financial regulation, etc. And he might even win the immigration thing because just like Xi An pointed out, this issue is not as partisan as the health care thing, so he might even be able to make it a case of "bipartisan" effort to reform and change. Although I personally think that's a "can of worm" with all kinds of negative consequences for this country.
Thanks 昭君. Actually I think Politico is quite fair and balanced. So let’s assume there is such a loophole in the bill indeed, which allows the senior staff to keep their current plans if they like them and forces the junior employees to participate in state-created exchange. Here is my personal take on this. 1. The whole idea of this reform is that “if you like your current plan, you can keep it”. In that sense, people like you and me are “exempt” too. It may not be a great idea to just discriminate against the staffers at the bottom. The exchange is set up for the uninsured folks so that they can pool together to buy plans for which they will have to pay higher premiums if they purchase individually. But still, it may not be as good as what the federal employees have now. Unlike the House bill passed last year, this bill doesn’t have a national exchange. That’s one of the reasons I like that House bill better. So the real point of this issue perhaps should be “why a small group of people are not exempt while the others are?” 2. This bill is far from great. And it’s no surprise that some bill drafters will always inject some “bugs” into the mountain of papers – both intentionally and unintentionally. But I think Washington Post said it best in one of its editorials, it’s a risk worth taking. People intend to say “we should not make perfect the enemy of good”. I would tell them we should not make “better” the enemy of good. 3.It’s a reform. So it’s an experiment – and a compromised one. It could fail. But I hope it will succeed. Its success depends on not only the bill itself, but also how to implement them and other factors. Let’s wait and see. Expect the best, prepare for the worst. I know it’s easier said than done. I have the bill loaded to my laptop after it's passed. I went there to look at page 158. These text is not there. They may be talking some amendments. But anyway, I don't want to spend too much time on it. We have too much contradicting information available and sometimes it's just unrealistic to set the record straight. I hope I made myself clear. So nice chatting with you.
Thanks for the information. I heard about this from a show at NPR, and the guest was someone who's supposed to give the "facts" about the bill and clarify some "misunderstandings" about it (I forgot her name and title), so I took its face value without doing my own digging. I clearly remembered she distinguished the "lower level staff members" who will be covered by this new plan, and the "upper level leaders and their staff members" who can be exempt. After reading your link, I am still not sure about this because I also saw the following claims. I know it's not from the same "non-partisan" source, but it could be true:
"The bill requires “congressional staff” to buy insurance from the exchanges – with a stipend from the Office of Personnel Management But page 158 of the bill defines “congressional staff” narrowly, as “employees employed by the official office of a member of Congress, whether in the district office or in Washington.”
"The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation "would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”
"If that’s so, staffers who work for Nancy Pelosi in her capacity as representative from California would go into the exchange program, while staffers who work for her in her capacity as speaker would stay on the government’s plan. Other Capitol employees, like those who work for the clerk of the House or the House historian, would be similarly exempted.
"Reid spokesman Jim Manley acknowledged that the bill exempts committee staff but argued that leadership staff is not excluded. As for why committee staff is excluded, Manley said that when leaders merged the health care bills from the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, they took Coburn’s language from the HELP Committee rather than Grassley’s Finance Committee proposal because they feared Grassley’s language was so broad that it would have required “people like legislative counsel, Architect of the Capitol, etc.” to participate in the exchanges, too."
Hey good morning 昭君. Thanks for your comments. About Congress and the White House being exempt, my first reaction was like, is this an April Fools' Day joke? Then I started to question if I had been wrong and could use a little more Yahoo!. Anyway, here is something I got from factcheck.com, a nonpartisan, nonprofit website. I hope that you found this bit of information creditable and helpful.
Q: Does the health care bill specifically exempt members of Congress and their staffs from its provisions?
A: No. This twisted claim is based on misrepresentations of the House and Senate bills, neither of which exempts lawmakers.
One thing you were right on: Pelosi is indeed a super woman!! Obama owes much of his victory to her will power, diplomatic maneuver and negotiation skill. Using one cliche: 这个女人不简单，呵呵，although I don't agree with a lot of her political ideologies and agenda. The next question is: How will Obama pay her back? Maybe he'll do what she wants him to do for a long time: push her pet project of immigrant reform? To his credit, I think today's announcement about starting drilling on the Mexican coastline is a good move. Maybe he'll be able to achieve what Bush has been trying to do for many years, although the Republicans don't think it's nearly enough.
You know my position on this whole thing so I'm not going to repeat it again. But one thing I don't understand is this: If the reformed insurance program is so good for everyone in the country, then why do the "upper level" congressional leaders and their staff members can be "exempt" and stay with their current insurance program? This also includes the White House staff members and the president himself.
