UPDATE: Jonathan Cohn responds with a “don’t kill the bill” POV

There is obviously a split in opinion on the left about whether the current iteration of the massive health care reform bill in the Senate amounts to any real reform. No, let me rephrase — substantial positive reform that addresses the health care industry's strangle hold over your wallet, and ability to dump customers that cost them too much.

 As with any huge reform, compromises must be made, but Jane Hamsher sees 10 good reasons why the Senate Dems sold out the health care consumer and the bill needs to fail.

The question for you, the reader, is whether this matters, given the more palatable House version has yet to be reconciled with the Senate bill, or this is just the harbinger of what is to come and so the Senate bill should die and the process on that side needs to be rebooted. The facts do give one pause:

Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

  1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
  2. If you refuse to buy the insurance,  you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
  3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
  4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
  5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
  6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
  7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
  8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
  9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
  10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Background information on each point:

  1. Hardship Waiver And Restrictions On Immigrants Buying Insurance Undercut Arguments For An Individual Mandate, by Jon Walker
  2. What’s in the Manager’s Amendment by David Dayen
  3. MyBarackObama Tax by Marcy Wheeler
  4. Emperor Ben Nelson:  All Your Uteruses Are Belong To Me by Scarecrow
  5. The Senate Bill is Designed to Make Your Health Insurance Worse by Jon Walker
  6. Best way to “Fix It Later” Is With No Individual Mandate  Now by Jon Walker
  7. The Senate Health Care Bill is Built on a Mountain of Sand by Jon Walker
  8. The Devil in Anna Eshoo’s Details by Jane Hamsher
  9. Liveblog of the Dorgan Reimportation Amendment by David Dayen
  10. Answering Nate Silver’s 20 Questions on the Health Care Bill by Jon Walker

The Senate bill isn’t a “starter home,” it’s a sink hole.  It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn’t matter whether people are on the right or the left — once they understand the con job that’s about to be foist upon them, they agree.  That’s why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people get wise. So email the list to your friends and family, tweet it and spread the word.

Sign the petition: kill the Senate bill.

   

Did you see that under this bill, Congress has gone out of its way to coddle the womb-controllers and curtail or eliminate federal funding for abortion, a legal procedure in the country.

And look at how long it will take for those with pre-existing conditions to see relief? And when the insurance companies do have to offer coverage; there is nothing stopping them from charging rates so high that one can't afford the policy. If you decline (and you can if the policy is more than 8% of your income), the coverage you may receive might still be so expensive because of co-pays and co-insurance that you won't be able to use it. Effectively that's health care rationing in another manner.

That's not reform. Real reform should produce a healthier overall population, not just everyone mandated to get into substandard plans because of economic discrimination. What is the point of giant risk pools if you're going to screw over people with pre-existing conditions. It's punish the patient all over again.

Look at it this way — if you take the optimistic view and say that this is just the first step towards single-payer, then what that viewpoint reflects is "have patience, trust me (the government)" Given the lofty equality/fierce advocate promises versus the level of commitment to the LGBT community has seen so far from this administration and Congress, would you trust them to resolve the serious problems of these compromises in a reconciled bill? Just sayin'.

The Women’s Media Center is encouraging women to surf to NotUnderTheBus.com, a comprehensive landing place created for anyone looking to know the latest news in the health care debate. As you know, the next two weeks are going to be crucial for activists to make sure their concerns are heard about this bill as it gets voted on in the Senate and moved back to the House for reconciliation. The restrictions on abortion in the bill are a severe threat to women’s choice and we’d like to ask you to help us get the word out about this by posting the video to your blog. We will continue to update you on the latest from NotUnderTheBus.com over the next two weeks so you can share with your readers when appropriate.

While the short term goal is to keep abortion restrictions out of health care reform, NotUnderTheBus.comis a long term project that will be working to move the conversation about health care back to the original problem – the Hyde Amendment.