What Reform Looks Like in Your Neighborhood

Folks, Henry Waxman ain’t playing.

Today, the entire Democratic delegation is meeting for 5 hours on HR 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act.  This is less a negotiating session and more a seminar on what’s in the bill and how it would help.  As preparation for this caucus meeting, Waxman’s staff on the House Energy and Commerce Committee – the last committee that reform legislation needs to pass through before it reaches the House floor -- has basically unleashed policy wonk hell upon unsuspecting legislators.

In an interview with Bill Clinton, Marc Ambinder wrote:  “Lost in the debate about how much health care reform will cost, Clinton said, is the debate about whether the reforms will work.”   Consider that debate snapped back into focus, at least for the Democrats.  The committee has released a Congressional district by Congressional district breakdown of the estimated impact of HR 3200.  You can look up your district here. Calculated for each and every CD is a breakdown of the number of small businesses that would be helped, the number of seniors who would be helped, the number of bankruptcies to be avoided, the amount of additional money local health care providers would receive, and the number of uninsured who would be uninsured no more.  The data cited comes from the Gallup-Healthways survey on the uninsured, the Census, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Ways and Means.

I’m relatively sure I had the same impulse as most people will – I looked up my home district (NY-8) first.  It begins with a bang:

…up to 26,200 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 7,100 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 430 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $135 million in uncompensated care each year; and 35,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.

Not bad.  Then I decided to get a little mischievous.  Mike Ross (AR-4) is both the leader of the Blue Dogs and one of the Democrats dragging his feet on health care reform within Energy and Commerce.  How, I wonder, would he like to explain passing up the following?

…up to 12,500 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 6,700 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 1,500 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $155 million in uncompensated care each year; and 124,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.

Numbers like these really crystallize the biggest “Go figure!” aspect of this debate.  My Congressman is Jerry Nadler.  He’s not only pro-reform, but he’s openly said he’d vote against a health care reform bill that didn’t at least contain the public health insurance option (he’s also a co-sponsor of HR 676).  Mike Ross has been publicly feuding with Waxman on trimming back reform.  But far more people in Ross’s district would benefit from reform than in Nadler’s district.

There’s a clear political overtone here.  If the House vote doesn’t happen before recess, nervous Democrats can now return to their districts and be able to answer how reform helps their constituents with confidence.  More to the point, it’s easy to see these numbers being cited in letters to constituents – and future campaign mailers – if and only if health care reform passes.

They'd look just as nice in a mailer from an electoral opponent if health care reform fails... and you voted against it.

(Photo credit:  House Education and Labor Committee on Flickr.)