Senate Finance Committee delays and more die

Once again the Baucus junta has delayed passing its version of the Health Care Reform bill, though their version would be better titled the no choices, Big Insurance Profit Protection Act. Despite the fact this version of the bill is an incredible insult to the intelligence of middle class Americans, until it is passed Health Care Reform is dead in the water. Once this bill is moved out of committee it can be merged with the actual Health Care Reform bill passed by the Senate Health Committee and hopefully morphed into something real, something helpful and a real positive change to middle income Americans.

But as long as Baucus and the Republicans hold America hostage with their version nothing can move forward.

So what is one more week? In that week 98,000 more Americans will lose their insurance coverage, 13,986 will go bankrupt from health care related expenses and 863 Americans will die. Good job Baucus and Senate Republicans.

What does it take to buy 3 Senators, apparently 6 million dollars

As expected Senators Kent Conrad, Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln betrayed their party, betrayed the voters, and betrayed the citizens in this country that are losing health care insurance, going bankrupt and some dying every day. These 3 soon to be former Senators voted against real health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee today. Instead they are leaving a bill that is a 60 billion give away to simply increase the profits of the Insurance Industry.

Why would these so called Democrats do such a thing? Well a quick look on opensecrets.org has the clear answer. 6 million dollars. That is the amount it took the Health, Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industry to buy these 3 Senators.

I previously reported that Kent Conrad was the million dollar man. Million Dollar Man

Then later on this blog I detailed how Max Baucus was even worse with campaign donations over 3 million dollars. Baucus pays off Big insurance

And today joining that duo in paying back their benefactors is Blanche Lincoln who has received a whopping 2 million from Insurance, Hospitals, pharmaceuticals and other health care providers.

It looks like the billions of profits and the high executive salaries of Big Insurance are now safe with a relatively minor investment paying off these 3 Senators 6 million dollars. That's quite a return on investment indeed.

Lincoln is up for removal in 2010.
Baucus and Conrad will have a progressive funded primary challenger in 2012.
As soon as I know who all three's primary challengers are I will announce who and where to donate to their campaigns.

Sen Baucus Pays off Big Insurance

#hc09
Senator Max Baucus yesterday did more to attempt to scuttle health care reform then any Republican has done so far and he is supposedly a Democrat. After stalling and delaying in the name of bi-partisanship he announced Max's Health Care Reform Bill yesterday. It was rather surprising at first that the he alone appeared at the press conference. Then as you read the bill as put on his web site it is referred to in many places as Max's bill. Now one may think of this as self promoting behavior, but after actually reading the proposal its clear that no other Senator would have anything to do with such legislation.

Not only does it have very little insurance reform in it at all. It provides for now public option or controlling of costs. The major positive is that it actually cuts the deficit. But how? It does so with Max's Tax that basically attempts to bankrupt the middle class with penalties directly from our paychecks and hands it over to the insurance industry.

Using the formulas in the actual proposed bill, I calculate that my personal health care costs would double under this plan.

Why would a Democratic Senator propose such a bill? There are many theories not the least of which is that there is some relation to his actions and the 3 million in campaign donations he has received from health insurance corporations.

Is not a surprise that the stock of most of the major insurance companies went up yesterday after the announcement of Max's Tax Bill. It seems they got what they paid for.

This bill needs to be given the attention it deserves in the nearest incinerator. Hopefully Senators like Jay Rockefeller and Sherrod Brown will fight to give Americans real health reform that helps middle class taxpayers instead of bloating the insurance companies profits even more.