Friday October 23 in Stamford, health care activists braved the October chill to rally across from a fundraiser for Senator Dodd featuring President Obama. Our message was simple: We want quality, affordable health care for everyone -- with a strong public option -- and we expect Sen. Dodd and Pres. Obama to deliver it.
After showing their might at town hall meetings, tea partiers who came to protest President Obama’s pit stop for U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd at the Stamford Hilton Friday were, well, a disappointment. Expected to turn out in the hundreds, they numbered at best 200. Expected to put on a loud lively show, they were subdued.
Gathered on Greenwich Avenue, just down the hill from the hotel, the not-so-angry right who came to protest Dodd’s re-election bid was met by a slightly bigger crowd of Dodd supporters. However the real topic du jour was health-care reform.
[...]
Across the street were the lefties — Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America and labor groups. John Murphy, lead organizer for HCAN’s Connecticut operation, and Rich Sivel, health-care organizer for Council 4, AFSCME, stood together in support of Dodd and a government-run public health-insurance option. As well as for the tea party movement.
“I’m glad they’re (tea partiers) here, because they’ve made Dodd a better legislator,” said Murphy. “The more they act up, the better (Dodd) gets.”
Why do we need State consumer protection laws, once we have the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA)?
States must be able to address problems within their borders, before they become nation-wide problems. Purely local problems do not need national legislation. These issues are best dealt with at the State and local levels.
Won’t this result in the CFPA and the States issuing rules on the same topic?
No. Historically, the States have stepped in where Federal policymakers have failed to establish adequate protections. The CFPA is intended to avert such failures in the future. If the CFPA does its job, it will ensure that consumers are adequately protected, and States will not feel compelled to go further. State legislators are subject to the same pressures as all other policy makers, and they do not seek out reasons to push back against the lending industry. Keeping alive the States’ traditional role will provide a backstop against lapses at the federal level and extra assurance that consumers will be appropriately protected. This will also incent industry to cooperate with efforts by the CFPA to issue protections that are appropriately robust and effective.
Are there other advantages to retaining the State’s traditional role in policymaking?
State laws responding to local problems provide useful models and data points for policymakers in other States and at the Federal level. This keeps our policies vibrant and innovative, and enables Federal policymakers to develop best practices based on the experiences of the States.
Click here to continue reading two news clips about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
Connecticut Man1 attended a recent CCAG event in Woodbridge and posted videos he recorded of special guests Ned Lamont, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and State House Speaker Chris Donovan.
The large turnout for Tuesday's action at the Aetna Building in Hartford received some attention from Sharon Bass at CT News Junkie:
About 150 health-care reform activists rallied with Smith outside of Aetna’s sprawling campus on Farmington Avenue Tuesday afternoon. They came to ask CEO Ronald Williams to sign a pledge promising to stop denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, to stop denying care when customers get sick, and to not lobby against health-reform proposals supported by President Obama and his allies in Congress, especially a provision for a public health option.
The demonstration was one of 150 across the country, simultaneously protesting unhealthy insurance practices and yelling for change in the way this country does medicine.
A central theme of this year’s convention: Push politicians in Washington to pass universal health care with a “public option” — government-backed insurance.
Connecticut Sen. Lieberman has been a prominent opponent of a public option and of moving with what he calls too much speed toward universal coverage.
“Joe’s gotta go!” union members yelled at a rally on the Green during Thursday’s lunch break.
State AFL-CIO chief John Olsen emceed the rally.
“Call him! … Tell him we need the option!” Olsen declared to the crowd.
By EDMUND H. MAHONY | The Hartford Courant | 5:22 PM EDT, August 28, 2009
Connecticut elections officials reacted with sharp criticism and promised an all-out legal fight Friday after a federal judge threw out the state's landmark campaign finance law, saying it puts minor-party office seekers at an unconstitutional disadvantage when they challenge traditionally better-financed major-party candidates.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which analyzes the impact that pending legislation will have on the budget if passed, has a history of underestimating the savings and overestimating the costs of health care policy changes says Jon Gabel of the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago in a New York Times op-ed:
As health care reform makes its way through Congress, the budget office’s assessment of how much various elements might cost may determine the details of legislation, and whether it ultimately passes. But when it comes to forecasting the costs of reform, the budget office’s record is suspect.
Gabel uses research from the Commonwealth Fund to compare CBO estimates of the costs and savings projections for health policy changes over the past 30 years to actual costs and savings. What he found was that the cautiously conservative estimation methods used by the CBO have been consistently off when it comes to major health policy changes:
The Congressional Budget Office’s consistent forecasting errors arose not from any partisan bias, but from its methods of projection. In analyzing initiatives meant to save money, it helps to be able to refer to similar initiatives in the past that saved money. When there aren’t enough good historical examples to go by, the estimated savings based on past experience is essentially considered to be unknown. Too often, “unknown” becomes zero — even though zero is not a logical estimate.
[...]
The budget office’s cautious methods may have unintended consequences in the current health care reform effort. By underestimating the savings that can come from improved Medicare payment procedures and other cost-control initiatives, the budget office leads Congress to think that politically unpopular cost-cutting initiatives will have, at best, only modest effects.
The CBO's track record of overly conservative savings estimates on health policy changes is important to keep in mind when articles such as this one in the Washington Post crop up.
Congressman Courtney made some opening remarks (which can be viewed here) and was joined by a couple of special guest speakers, who briefly addressed the attendees before a lengthy Q&A session. One of those guests was Judith Stein, who has spoken at a number of health care forums around the state. Last night, as she was telling a personal health care story, someone hollered out that she should just "switch" to another health insurer. Take a look at the video below to see how Ms. Stein responds:
The second guest speaker was Jenny Bass, whose family has had a farm in Eastern Connecticut for 299 years, but can no longer afford health insurance. While she told her story and spoke in favor of health care reform, some members of the audience treated her with disrespect. One such person was later given an opportunity to address the crowd:
This is something that healthy people who oppose health care reform say all the time. It relies on the assumptions that if you are once healthy that you can and will always be healthy, and that people who eat healthy diets and regularly exercise never need expensive medical care. Both of these assumptions are flawed. Statements like that are right up there with Medicare recipients who stand in firm opposition to government health plans:
"I've been an independent voter most of my life, I've lived in this district for most of my life, and I've never been to a town hall before, but I'm here because I am appalled that the private insurance companies are spending 1.4 million dollars a day to kill the public option, paying off and busing in phony citizen groups; the insurance companies know the only way to kill reform is to get people of good conscience fighting, while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don't think very highly of our intelligence.
"But I think that this year - this time - they're wrong."
The majority of the room erupted in applause, with only silence and no booing coming from the stunned wingnuts.
For the rest of the meeting, they still did make SOME noise and still talked back when they heard things they didn't like - but no longer loudly and abrasively enough to disrupt the meeting and interrupt any who spoke in favor of a public option for several seconds at a time. Their cover was blown.
If you'd like to read a little more about the forum, a firsthand account of the event can be read at Woodstock, CT Café.
The House and the Senate succeeded in overturning Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s veto of the SustiNet bill Monday, but the state Senate failed to overturn the Healthcare Partnership bill after one senator failed to vote even though she was still in the building.
“The insurance capital of the country just passed a bill that provides a framework for a public option,” Juan Figueroa, president of the Universal Health Care Foundation, said as he celebrated with supporters on the fourth floor of the state Capitol.
The passage of the SustiNet bill “really puts the state in a great position” as the national health care debate continues, Figueroa said.
“We began this process with a blank sheet of paper and a mandate from the American people. We all knew the history, marked with too many disappointments, and I said that this time would be different. Well, this time is different,” said Dodd. “The American people demanded legislation that protects their choice of doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans; cuts costs for families, businesses, and the federal government; and ensures that, in the wealthiest nation in the world, everyone has access to affordable, high-quality care. This time, we have produced the legislation Americans wanted. This time, we have delivered on the promise of real change.”
CCAG on Facebook
CCAG on YouTube
CCAG on Flickr
RSS Feed
