victory! and health industry stocks lead the way...

[thotzRthingz]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2211367620100322?type=marketsNews

[ixion]

1. Yep. A huge Win for BigMed.

:argh:

[thotzRthingz]

3. what makes me mad/sad is that this did not have to happen... (we all could have been

celebrating SINGLE-PAYER, or at least a public option)

[onenote]

6. could you describe the process by which the votes for single payer

or even public option could have been obtained?

Specifically, the 60 votes needed to move a bill with single payer/public option in the Senate initially, or the 216 votes needed to move single payer/public option in the House last night (keeping in mind that three members who voted for the public option version in November (Arcuri, Berry and Space) chickened out and wouldn't even support the non public option version last night despite enormous pressure put on them do so and five of the votes cast for the bill last night came from members who opposed the PO version in Novmeber and certainly wouldn't have supported it last night.

[gratefultobelib]

10. Thanks for this post.

[laughingliberal]

11. Would have been interesting to see what kind of votes we'd have had

if the President had lobbied forcefully for it. That said the Senate will soon be voting on a reconciliation amendment which will only need 51 votes. In a very weird turn of events, Pelosi refused to include it in the reconciliation bill saying the Senate did not have the votes although the Senate had 58 or 59 votes for the Medicare expansion back in December when they still needed 60. Cute, huh?

At any rate, Reid has promised Sanders he will bring a bill creating the public option under reconciliation to the floor for a vote in the next couple of months. This is in return for Sanders dropping his plan to offer an amendment to the reconciliation bill creating a public option. So, we will see.

[Hamlette]

13. and would you have changed reconciliation rules too?

since reconciliation can only be used for budget items, how could we do universal or public option through reconciliation? I just do not understand this argument and believe me, I've followed it as closely as anyone. Enlightment me. And how is it you know the President lobbying forcefully could have done it? (That might sound like I believe the president did not forcefully support what we got. I think he did but it is a matter of opinion, mine vs yours. Neither of us has the facts to state one way or the other.)

One good thing to know, although you seem so full of hate and misinformation I don't think it will help, is now we have established, for the first time in our history, that the government has a role in health care for all. We will either go to the Swiss model or the French model (both have huge components of private insurance) or the Canadian system. We will never again have to argue about the role, just how good the government is doing.

As a history major who studied FDR and his attempts to pass HCR (his number one goal) I can tell you we never could have passed in now (as then) BUT the way is paved. It will come. Much sooner with this bill than it ever would have without it.

[laughingliberal]

22. The Public Option would have been one of the easiest things to do under

reconciliation. Otherwise, why is Reid promising to get a public option to the floor for a vote in the next couple of months? It would seem if this can not be done under reconciliation he would be the one who would know. Reconciliation is limited to items which affect the budget. Creating the revenue sources and allocating them to set the public option up is pretty straight forwardly a budget item. In fact, I think a single payer system would have been very easy to pass under reconciliation and would have been well within the limits of the Byrd rule. I have to think Reid would not be promising Sanders he would bring a bill creating a public option to the floor under reconciliation if he did not think it could be done under reconciliation. If he's playing Sanders he will be hearing from me. He has few supporters left here in Nevada and I'm one of them.

I don't know why you perceive I am full of 'hate' although I realize it has been a popular talking point for the supporters of the bill to use against those of us who have had issues with the bill. I'm not sure 'hate' applies to pointing our problems with a policy. I am frustrated at the leadership who did not seem to become energized to fight for health care reform until the bill was pushed as far right as possible. And I have been shocked by the back room deals with the very industries we needed to rein in. I am, also, not full of misinformation except in the minds of those who can state there are problems with the bill or that the bill is not perfect but seem not to feel we should be looking at or noticing what those problems are or in what ways it is imperfect.

I do hope the bill will, as many seem to believe, lead to something better than what it is now. And I intend to do what I can to try and see that happen. There are a host of problems which will not be seen for a while. Some of the seemingly most insignificant parts of the bill will prove to affect people's lives in ways they can not even imagine right now. I'd like us to be aware of these and look for opportunities to get them changed. Hell, I'd be happy right now just to see the Ensign (my other Senator) amendment repealed and see the President reverse Bush's executive order that gives your employer a right to the details of your health care information. To what end? Innocent as some people may view this I see it as having the potential for very sinister uses against employees in the future especially as genetic testing becomes more and more common. I remember hearing the news near the end of the Bush administration that he had signed this executive order and thinking, "Once Obama is sworn in, he'll take care of that." How flabbergasted am I that he not only did not reverse that hit to our rights to privacy but the health care legislation now contains an amendment which was made possible by it and can be used against people? This is not hate. It is a substantive issue which we should be looking at taking action on.

Perhaps we will see President Obama become the FDR we need right now. I sincerely hope we do. I will be right there at the front cheering for him when we see that. I went against a whole lot of Democratic friends wishes by supporting him over Hillary in our caucuses here. I really, really want him to succeed in producing results for the working and middle classes which have been decimated here in Nevada over the past 3 years.

[onenote]

21. He lobbied pretty damn forcefully for it the last two weeks and still couldn't get

three Democrats who had voted for the PO version in November to support a watered down version (and its not because they didn't think the bill didn't go far enough).

And where did Pelosi pin the blame on the Senate for not pursuing the PO as part of the reconciliation? Here is the transcript of the interview where she said it was off the table. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1002/28/sotu.01.html

And assuming that Sanders brings his public option bill up (and it was my understanding that a reconciliation bill on the HCR bill would have to originate in the House, although I don't know for a fact that is true), I still don't know where you find the votes for it in the House.

[laughingliberal]

23. If you have seen reports that the President lobbied for the Public Option in the past 2 weeks I

would be happy to see them and stand corrected. All I saw was the President said he would support it if the votes were there but I saw nothing which said he tried to push any of them to do anything but pass this bill.

Here is a report I saw quoting Pelosi on why she would not put a public option in the reconciliation bill:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she would not include a public option in a health care reconciliation package that the House will send to the Senate.

"We're talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation," Pelosi said, noting "with sadness" that the public insurance option won't be part of legislation. "I'm quite sad that the public option is not in there," she said.

Earlier Thursday, a spokesman to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said Durbin would "aggressively whip" a health care bill that included a public option.

Pelosi, however, put the onus back on the Senate, saying that the chamber didn't have the votes needed for it. <snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/pelosi-public-option_n_496559.html

The House wrote the reconciliation bill to change some of the provisions the Senate passed back to the versions in the House. Sanders has now agreed not to offer his amendment on the public option to the reconciliation bill. The reason given is Reid is going to try not to allow any amendments to be offered because if he does the Republicans will then attempt to offer endless amendments to delay the process. In return for dropping his plan to offer an amendment on the PO Reid has promised to bring a bill creating a public option to the floor under reconciliation in the next couple of months. I am hoping he will be able to do that.

[onenote]

24. He barely was able to convince enough members to support a non PO version

He tried, and hard, to keep three blue dogs that had supported the PO version in November on board with a weaker version and failed. And yet you think he could've gotten members who had OPPOSED the PO version to support one now? You're living in a fantasy world if you think that. Name names of those who you think were persuadable now who weren't persuadable in November, given the difficulty in keeping those who had previously supported the PO version on board. (Kucinich of course is the exception since he opposed the PO version because it didn't go far enough. Persuading someone like Kucinich who doesn't think a bill goes far enough to support it because its a "first step" is a completely different ball game than trying to persuade someone who thinks that the PO goes too far that they should support a PO version.

[laughingliberal]

27. OK, it's anybody's guess if the Senate had 50 votes

Many people keeping the whip count felt they did. If they don't I'd like to know where they went. In December when they passed their bill it was 5 or 6 Senators against a PO. As far as I heard there were only 2 opposed to the Medicare buy in Reid proposed at the very end. Which tells me there should have been enough to pass it under reconciliation where we only needed 50 with Biden's tie breaking vote. I am not living in a fantasy world. We saw the House pass a bill with a PO in it. We have no reason to doubt the House would not have passed a reconciliation bill with it again. No one in the House was threatening to bolt over including a public option. Pelosi's statement was she wasn't putting it in because the Senate did not have the votes. And Durbin thought they did and said he'd work aggressively to get the votes.

We were screaming since August for the Senate to pass the PO under reconciliation. We kept being told reconciliation was not an option cause they wanted a 'bipartisan' bill and it would be too polarizing. Then, Scott Brown won the seat in MA and they had to use reconciliation cause the House would not accept the Senate bill without being able to change any of it. They could not overcome a filibuster so a reconciliation bill had to be done that could bypass the filibuster and pass with only a simple majority. Then we only needed 50 votes. Where did the 50 go? I believe they're still right there like they always were.

I don't believe Reid would be promising to bring a bill for the public option to the floor under reconciliation in the next couple of months if he thought he didn't have the votes. I also don't think Sanders would have planned to offer an amendment on it if he didn't think the votes were there. Both of these guys have been around the Senate a long time and they are not neophytes. They damned well know where their votes are. Reid takes a lot of guff from people but he knows how to count the votes in his chamber. He knew when he wrote the public option with an opt out for states in the blended bill that he was close to 60 and felt he could get to 60. He had 60 votes for the Medicare expansion when he floated it or he would not have floated it. Somehow it kept getting derailed and it was very weird. But I still believe there are 50 and I believe if Reid gets it to the floor it will pass. There are those who won't be happy but it is the right thing to do.

[Newest Reality]

2. Cha-ching!

Capitalism marches on!

Life is the gift that keeps on giving ... as long as you keep paying for it, that is. The free lunches are exclusively offered at the top of the financial food chain, but enjoy that ten percent, employee discount.

America ROCKS and the banks roll! Give me liberty or give me easy payment plans. If I have only one credit card to use, let me use it for my country.

[branders seine]

4. LOL

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

that's some serious "change"!

How gullible can people be?

[terrell9584]

5. If its good for the insurance industry

It's bad for America

[Individualist]

7. Change you can believe in?

[spanone]

8. actually stocks were up, but heathcare stocks were mixed and those up only slightly

[laughingliberal]

12. Here's what the linked article said:

Hospital companies, insurers focused on Medicaid gain

* Drugmaker, biotech company shares up (Adds analyst comment, credit default detail, updates shares)

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - Shares of Medicaid insurers, hospital companies and even drugmakers rose on Monday as many investors concluded that passage of landmark U.S. healthcare legislation will add millions of new paying patients.

The S&P Health Care Sector index .GSPA was up nearly 1 percent on Monday, outpacing the broader market, after the U.S. House of Representatives gave final approval to a sweeping overhaul late on Sunday night.

Shares of hospital companies such as Community Health Systems (CYH.N) and health insurers such as Amerigroup (AGP.N) that focus on Medicaid plans for the poor led the increases. Analysts expect those companies to benefit as the reform package extends coverage to 32 million Americans.


Robert Schaeffer, portfolio manager with Becker Capital Management, noted that health insurance companies had been on the rise prior to Sunday's reform bill vote, foreshadowing a positive take by investors.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2211367620100322?type=marketsNews

[thotzRthingz]

18. I realize that this is merely "speculation" (but I fully expect investors to JUMP-IN with both feet)

I fully expect 20-50% premium increases immediately, and for the next three years sequentially, in all existing policies. This is precisely what the banks did in front of the CARD act becoming effective, and it will happen here as well. That is the cause of the short-term rocket shot in the health-related stocks this morning.

- source: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2109-Health-Care-Arbitrage-Obama-And-The-Dems.html

[New Dawn]

9. Kick for truth.

[frylock]

14. who could have ever anticipated..

aww, fuck it.

[HughMoran]

15. simple minds

lack depth

[amborin]

16. Nope! Insurers, hospitals and especially BIG Pharma did really well

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7987784&mesg_id=7987784

[HughMoran]

17. so simple, so short term thinking

please don't embarrass yourself

[amborin]

19. don't embarrass yourself! the long-term negatives are HUGE

you either simply don't get it, or you're suffering from a cult of the personality affliction

if Bush had passed such a bill, i'd wager you'd be howling

this is corporations' dream piece of legislation

direct taxpayer subsidies to huge insurance corporations, enforced by the IRS

[HughMoran]

20. Must be a 'clut of personality' affliction

Yeah, that it. I was talking about the rise in HC stocks, not the HCR bill. Sheesh.

[Mari333]

25. I am sooo not looking forward to seeing my stupid catastrophic lousy insurance

rates go up now that the insurance companies can do whatever they want. Ill just dump it, keep my fingers crossed, and hope I dont get sick for 5 more yrs. til I get Medicare.

[skipos]

26. Sigh. Health insurance stocks are mostly flat with the market over the last

and the last two years.

I am not a fan of this bill, but I don't see why so many DUers like to get all Fox News about their stock data.