Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Anthem, Aetna) sent an email out yesterday attempting to explain his vote against health care reform. His explanation is completely false and utterly laughable, and I will explain why after the excerpt from his email.First, I believe that health care reform must reduce the cost of health care. In order for health care reform to be sustainable over the long-term, it is not enough to pass a bill that is deficit neutral; the bill must also reduce the cost of health care. I believe both of these things are necessary to meet the President's goals on health care reform.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the version of the health care reform legislation that came before the House on Saturday would not substantially address the issue of skyrocketing health care costs.
Second, the House bill would cut significant funding from children's hospitals, including Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk. If this provision becomes law, CHKD could lose up to $20 million in critical funding each year, leading it to cut back on services or potentially close down entirely. I worked hard to fix this problem before the bill came to a vote, authoring a letter with fellow democrats to House leadership and even introducing an amendment to try to change this, but the cuts to CHKD were still included in the bill on Saturday night. In order to guarantee that all our families can continue to access the high-quality care provided by CHKD, I believe that this problem must be fixed before this bill becomes law. I will continue working to try to fix this provision as the process continues in the Senate.
My god, where to begin?
1. If Glenn Nye is so concerned that health care reform not only be "deficit neutral," but actually "reduce the cost of health care," my question to him are these: a) Did you fight to have a robust public option tied to Medicare offered to all? b) Did you work to create a payment-setting central council? c) Did you argue for changing the Eshoo amendment (which effectively "undermines the best chance Congress has to provide a market-based approach to moderate the cost growth in the most rapidly inflating, highest-cost element of the pharmaceutical industry—biotech drug products—and, ultimately, increase access to affordable, life-saving medicines?" d) Did you work to create a powerful risk adjuster to force insurance companies to compete on cost effectiveness? I could go on and on, but you probably get the idea. The answer to all these questions is "no, Glenn Nye didn't do anything at all in any of these areas." The bottom line is that there are dozens of proven ideas to save real money on health care, but if your name is Glenn Nye and you don't lift a finger to fight for any of them, then I'm sorry but you can't bitch and moan that nothing is being done to control costs (well, actually, you CAN bitch and moan, but nobody's going to take you seriously).
By the way, regarding the "deficit neutral" issue, as Kyle Blankenship pointed out earlier this morning, the CBO has crunched the numbers and concluded that "the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting H.R. 3962, incorporating the manager’s amendment, would yield a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2010-2019 period." That's right, this bill is even better than deficit neutral, yet that's not good enough for Glenn Nye the Supposed "Democratic" Guy?
2. As far as the other point is concerned, Nye claims the House healthcare bill would cut "funding" for children's hospitals, yet the fact is that most of the cuts for hospitals are from a reduction in federal reimbursements for emergency care, which will be made up by individuals who would become insured under this legislation. In other words, the bill represents a cut in federal funding, but not necessarily a cut in the hospital's total revenues or profits. What's more, the hospital industry association agreed to this tradeoff, as part of its $155 billion deal with the White House. Was Glenn Nye against that deal? Did he speak out against it at the time? If not, why not?
In sum, Glenn Nye's "explanation" doesn't hold up to the least bit of scrutiny or those crazy things known as "facts." Which is why I'm going to start calling Glenn Nye "The B.S. Guy" from now on. Because that's what his vote against healthcare reform and his email explaining said vote are - total bull.
