Just heard about this from the Richardson campaign:
Governor Bill Richardson will announce his, new national healthcare plan in a speech at the Iowa Professional Firefighters-Local 15 Hall in Council Bluffs, Iowa tomorrow [Tuesday] at 1:30 PM.
WHEN: 1:30 PM (Central Time)
WHAT: Speech on Universal Healthcare Plan
WHERE: Iowa Professional Firefighters-Local 15, 1827 South 8th St, Council Bluffs, IA
I look forward to hearing more details about Richardson's health care plan and how he would pay for it, in light of his support for a balanced budget constitutional amendment and his promises not to raise taxes.
2 Comments
Richardson's true ideas are draconian and stupid.
samdobermann Wed 8 Aug 2:59 PM
Richardson's true ideas -- for real
(sorry, I screwed up above, my bad.)
In New Mexico we just had an analysis done by the independent, highly respected Mathematica, of three proposed plans, at a cost of about $340,000. One plan, called Health security, was a true universal coverage single payer plan; the other two were variations on coerced insurance for employers and individuals not covered by employers.
Not surprisingly, single payer proved to be the lowest cost — necessitating no new taxes (except employers who would be relieved of the cost of providing insurance would pay into a state fund) and would actually provide universal coverage.
But Bill Richardson sent his marching orders to the Committee he created: NO plan that does not include insurance compaies!
So this committee of toadies is going around the state touting the study BUT SKIPPING THE RESULTS and saying this (mish-mash)is what we have come up with. As far as I can tell it is a copy of the Massachusetts plan with a few strange things like compelling doctors to treat people — sometime in direct conflict with federal law. Oh, and merit pay for docs???
Here is his directive with some comments from an activist; it is not available on any state site (no surprise). Sorry for the PDF — and I don’t know how to link here. Looked for a faq, could not find.
http://www.whatifyou…
Big Bill intends to ram this thru in the next few months. Oh, by the way this state government is flush with funds from oil and gas and coal revenues and both state houses are Democrat dominated so no skill is needed to get what Big Bill wants, just brute force and patronage.
I sigh when I saw the Iowa list of new legislation. We are still so behind. Instead of funds for energy research our existing law re renewable energy was gutted by allowing buying credits rather than building more. Also tax cuts went to the top brackets, rather than to the working poor. Pitiful rebates for alternative power. A new solar panel company here sells its entire output to Germany!
Please do not trust Bill Richardson; he is pure sleeze with great speech and policy writers. He is certainly not very progressive here in NM unless it is something he wants to use for his presidental campaign. He did little his first 4 years except cater to interests to get reelected.
sam
samdobermann Wed 8 Aug 3:56 PM