They’ve Got a Lot of Nerve. Where’s Ours?

Nearly half of the uninsured in this country – 47% according to the Department of Health and Human Services – are above 200% of the Federal Poverty line.  200% translates to about $44,000 in income for a family of 4, meaning the average family plan on the individual insurance market would cost 27% of their pre-tax income.  For a family of 4 at 300% of the poverty line, it’s 18% of their income.  How can they afford that?  They can’t.  So we’re looking at 22 million people, give or take, who are above 200% of the federal poverty line who are uninsured.  These are the exact same people that politicians of both parties love to say they’re helping – hard-working, middle-class, working people who are being failed right now by out health care system because they literally have no options.  In this economic climate, where employers are cutting jobs (and the benefits that go with them), or are requiring more cost-sharing from their employees, or are even keeping the job but cutting the benefits, the number of people who are one step away from being uninsured is staggering.

So of course, today in the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee markup, Republican senators put forward seven separate amendments to reduce or eliminate subsidies for those above 200-250% of the poverty line.

Thanks to Igor Volsky for the video below:

Let’s leave aside the somewhat paradoxical notion that, as Sen. Judd Gregg suggests, the best way to “take folks who do not have insurance and give them subsidy because they need it – and that would be the low and moderate income individuals” is to cut back on subsidies for… well, low and moderate income individuals.  Let me instead hit one small detail that may have gotten lost in all the political posturing:

The whole point of health care reform is that millions and millions of Americans can’t afford our system the way it is – and it’s getting harder and harder each year.

That’s the point.

You can explain this point however it makes sense to you.  You can talk about how 62% of personal bankruptcies now involve medical debt.  Or you can talk about how even in countries which rely on a combination of public and private coverage – like Switzerland or Japan – total costs are regulated to be no more than 8% of an individual’s income, with half the cost picked up by an employer… yet here, members of the United States Senate are arguing it’s acceptable to force people to spend 18-27% of their income just to buy the insurance, let alone the co-pays.  Or you can just look at the fact that the same people who argue nothing should interfere with the treatment decisions made by a doctor and a patient are content to perpetuate a system where more and more people are forgoing or delaying treatment because they can’t afford it.

But none of them don't make this display any less disgusting.  You can’t gut the provisions that make health care affordable for middle class Americans and claim you’re making a valuable contribution.  Yet this is the great and hallowed contribution of “bipartisanship” to this bill markup process.

They’ve got a lot of nerve.

This comes ironically the day after Air America helped push this video of Howard Dean on Keith Olbermann’s show.  His diagnosis of the problems Democrats seem to be having rallying around health care reform?  “The issue is people not having enough nerve, not having enough spine to do the right thing.”

Health care reform that doesn’t make it affordable for everyone – regardless of where you fall on the poverty scale – is not real reform.  My worry is that, as always, the only people who lend credence to the arguments of Republican Senators are Democratic Senators…