Baucus…Because

Anytime Max appears on the local news, it’s always good times because he comes across like it’s his first time in front of a camera.

Joe, another good post. Thanks.

Baucus, he of the odious bailout package and ties to Jack Abramoff and other conflicts of interests? Him playing a big part in this health care plan is not something to huzzah over.
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The employer based system [under Baucus' proposal] isn’t merely preserved, it’s actually strengthened. The plan aims for something close to universality through an employer mandate.
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Sounds like more of the same: young stuck in underpaying, overworked, wage-stagnant, dead-end jobs for fear of losing insurance. Wall Street must be stoked about all these new markets he proposes to create, though.

This is a very important piece to which you’ve linked, Joe Klein.

I never thought in a million years that I’d be saying this, but Max Baucus’ health insurance strategy is better than the Obama campaign’s. I should probably say that this “plan” starts where Obama’s left off, and brings those policy goals into the realm of the feasible, responsible and the possible.

If this is the Democrats’ vision of the future of health insurance, then we as a country can truly begin to be hopeful about where this new government is going to take us.

We don’t agree about much, Joe Klein, but you and I and tens of millions of Americans are counting on Baucus’ last word to knock down once and for all this great obstacle standing in the way of our nation’s fullest potential; the absurdly chaotic, hyper-inflationary and compassion-less rule of shareholder-driven bureaucracy over individuals’ health care fulfillment may finally be at its end.

Ted Stevens’ lead just dropped to 971 votes from 3,200 in Alaska with 25,000 of the 90,000 absentee, early votes counted so far.

25k more to be counted today, the rest maybe on Friday. It looks like Internet Tubes may end up losing this thing.

Here’s the key from E Klein’s analysis:

The plan sets up a Health Insurance Exchange — similar to the exchange envisioned by Obama — where the government would set up a market pitting regulated private and public insurance options against each other. The plan specifically says that individuals and small businesses could buy into the market. As for midsize and large businesses, more on that in a moment. Importantly, the Exchange is not the only space where insurers will find themselves subject to new regulation. “Under the Baucus plan, insurance companies could not deny coverage to any individual nor discriminate against individuals with pre-existing conditions…[this] would apply in the Exchange as well as the private non-group and small group markets.” In other words, everywhere.

You mean to say that we individuals can essentially join a pool, and get a pool rate on individual coverage, much like our big-company employed fellow citizens?

You mean to say that coverage can be affordable for individuals, by allowing them to join up to get a group rate, just like the group plans offered by insurers to businesses?

…that means that we can quit our jobs, and start small businesses without fear of bankruptcy or for our childrens’ health, doesn’t it?

This is change I can believe in.

Stuart_Zechman, this sounds like even the NFIB could support it.

Good to see that 1) it’s spearheaded by Congress, which is where this issue should be negotiated out and 2) someone other than Hillary is in charge. Hopefully, Baucus knows what he’s doing.

It seems to have enough muscle to really make a difference, but reasonable enough to help small businesses. Encouraging.

BTW, Kennedy is a)working on healthcare and b)preparing to set sail in Florida. Can we infer that a happy outcome is possible?

You know Obama spent an awful lot of time in Montana

The more I read about this the more I think this would be an excellent way for Renegade to buck up all of the hand-wringing, Pavlov-like Democrats who can’t help but respond to the right’s desperate pleas to take it slow and act like Republicans. I would think that this would be the perfect play of a president-elect who is really good at chess and has to wait for the current president get off stage.

It’s downright Bauchannalian.

Since you mentioned alt energy as being a focus in the spring, can I put on my wonk hat and ask my fellow commenters to write a few emails to their congressional reps? I’ve already written to mine as well as to the Obama team.
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One of my personal hobby horses, as a remodel contractor, is green building systems. The technology that most interests me are geo-thermal (or ground-assist) heat pumps. These systems are appropriate for most parts of the country and offer the greatest energy savings and carbon reductions per dollar spent of any existing home energy technology. A geo-thermal heat pump uses 35 – 65% less energy for heating and cooling than a traditional furnace/ac or heat pump system. The biggest drawback is initial cost – the systems cost about double what a traditional furnace/ac unit or heat pump costs, mostly due to the need to drill or trench for the ground loop. Under the energy conservation tax incentives that expired in 2007, you would have received a measly $350 for installing one of these systems (with your additional cost being in the range of $5000 – $7500) – in other words, no real incentive at all. I’ve scoured the package passed by Congress recently, and could find no mention of tax credits or deductions for these systems. Yet they are the most affordable energy-reducing technology available to homeowners. A solar system that would reduce the energy you draw from the grid by a similar amount would cost $20,000 or more.
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So I need help from all you blog geeks to impress upon your members of Congress the need to not overlook this technology, which is more in reach for most of us than anything else out there right now. I suspect this gets overlooked because it’s not as “sexy” as solar, wind, or bio-fuel solutions – but consider: something like 15 – 20% of the nation’s energy usage goes to residential heating and cooling. Systems that use half as much energy make sense no matter how our energy is being produced. When we make the switch over to solar and wind and other types of renewable energy generation, having these systems in place will help whatever energy we produce from renewable sources go that much further.
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So, for those of you who aren’t too pissed at my intrusion that you’ve already stopped reading, the points to make are: biggest energy & dollar savings and carbon reductions per dollar spent, most accessable technology currently available for homeowners, time to recoup additional initial costs 5 years or less (at which point anyone using this system will have more money in their pockets – which is good for the overall economy – compare to the 20 years or more needed to recoup cost of home solar, by which time the equipment is worn out and needs replacement), carbon emissions reductions continue after initial costs are recouped, and the need for tax credits/deductions or even low-or-no-interest loans to offset additional costs for installing the systems so more people can afford them.
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Any takers? Sorry to clog up the comments with this, but I don’t have a blog of my own, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have as many readers as this one. Thanks for the forebearance.

Brilliant, jennofark!
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But SC is out of luck unless there’s pork in it for Graham and DeMint, because this involves “science,” which they know to be evil and against the Biblical Order of Creation.
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Oh, for a single day back in my dear old Colorado where, minus El Paso County, congresspeople make an effort to understand these things, and the climate and ground temperature are particularly suitable.

Jenn I have copied the treatise and will reread it later and make a suitable plea to my members of congress and pass this on to those with whom I have sway.

Jenn:

I own an apartment in a five story pre-war literally brick-wall building in the East Village in Manhattan.

Is geo-thermal really an option for my premises?

stuart – probably not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good option for the 50 or 100 million single family homes out there, as well as more suburban-type apartment complexes. The benefit to you, personally, is that every one of these systems installed will result in a 35 – 65% reduction in carbon emissions as compared with the emissions associated with more traditional HVAC systems. Isn’t that a good enough reason to write your congressman?

Jenn:

Certainly, that’s more than good enough of a reason to write my congress-people (Carolyn Maloney is my Representative).

I wasn’t taking issue at all with the idea of contacting our representatives in terms of moving policy in this direction.

I’m the president of my coop board of directors, and we’re looking for cheap ways to get my building off of heating oil ASAP, actually.

Thanks for this information, Jenn.

stuart – I’ve thought about it some more, and it’s not impossible that these types of systems would work in a high-density place like NYC – though it would certainly be more complex to figure out how to do it. For one thing, you need a minimum run of “ground loop” for each individual heat pump, something like 100′ per ton (heat/air systems are sized by “tonnage” – usually something like 1 ton per 500 sf of living space). So it’s hard to get enough loop in the ground when you have several thousand people/living units in a single city block. Secondly, in places like New York, there is already heavy utilization of the area below-ground – subways, water & sewer, electric & gas lines, steam pipes, you name it. You’d have to navigate through all of that, probably by drilling straight down several hundred feet, to install ground loops. But here’s what occured to me – the cheapest installations of these systems don’t rely on “ground” loops at all, but rather on loops installed in an existing water well or in a surface body of water such as a pond or lake. All of these bodies of water are pretty close to ground temperature and can perform the same heat-transfer function the earth provides, and installing the “ground loop” in such a location eliminates the need for drilling or trenching the ground. And isn’t Manhattan surrounded by water on all sides? So yes, it would be possible, but as with everything else in NYC, it would have to be a cooperative venture to ever make it work. So unless someone can prevail upon the city to install a loop-net at the bottom of the Hudson River, it’s probably not going to be a technology of much use to residents of Manhattan.

Thanks so much for this further explanation, Jenn.

It’s fascinating, actually.

I’m going to go to Wikipedia next…

[...] 13, 2008 by kipsikora Definitely not a breaking news story, but good to see Max Baucus getting some national [...]