10/19/09: TWD's Agenda For The Day: Overview of Senate Health Care Bill

Igor Volsky compares both the Senate bill written last night and the House bill passed. He also compares the merged Senate bill with the piece of crap and corporate giveaway of the Senate Finance Bill.

Still a lot more people uninsured with the merged opt-out bill in the Senate than what should be. Shouldn't 94% be 100%? You would think so, huh?

The people at FDL sure don't like it one bit. From Ms.Hamsher:

Yet in the midst of quibbling about $90 billion a year for health care, the President just signed a one year $680 billion defense spending bill, which does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents a serious problem with the priorities of those in government.

And Slinker:

Those are the provisions that were removed from the public option in the Senate HELP bill. The CBO also estimated that the public option in the Senate merged bill will only have 3 million customers at best, because of the opt-out provision which many erroneously supported here on Dailykos. There's also a list of more flaws with the Senate bill which you can read right here.

And Jon:

1) Delays Start Until 2014 – One of my biggest criticisms is the delayed timing. The House bill starts most of the reforms in 2013; I already thought that late start was both a moral and political disaster. Many Americans desperately need reform now, not several years from now. I also would not want to be a Democrat who voted for health care reform trying to explain why there were still so many uninsured Americans during both the 2010 and 2012 elections. To make the Senate bill appear cheaper, Reid made the disastrous decision to push back the start date until 2014! In effect, his bill is not really cheaper than the House bill, it is just scored over only six years instead of seven years.

Fierce urgency of now only applies to military spending I guess.