What would Julia Child say?
Posted September 23rd, 2009 by Donna NortonFull disclosure: I’m not a great baker. My kids think a Betty Crocker cake is fully homemade. However, it seems to me that healthcare reform is kind of like baking a cake. If you don’t have the right ingredients, it will fall as flat as a pancake.
Last week Senator Baucus released his proposal for health reform that is an attempt at a compromise measure which he hopes will be the blueprint for reform moving forward. Unfortunately, it looks like it needs our help to make it rise.
Tell Congress that the Baucus health reform proposal that they are considering this week is missing some of the necessary ingredients to get health reform right for kids and families! http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27304
What are the missing ingredients in the Baucus proposal? Affordable coverage, comprehensive benefits, employer responsibility to help pay for health coverage, a strong public option, better reimbursement rates for Medicaid providers; and a guarantee that health reform will also benefit kids, not set back the great advances in children’s health coverage made by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
That’s right. The Senate Finance Committee is meeting right now to consider the Baucus proposal for health reform. Congress needs to hear from each and every one of us (forward this email far & wide) that any health reform proposal must have the following key ingredients in order to work for kids and families:
* Ending unfair insurance practices such as rejecting applicants based on pre-existing conditions and setting insurance rates based on gender, health status, or age
* A strong public health insurance plan option that ensures choices for consumers, lowers costs, and provides real competition for insurance companies
* Head to toe coverage for ALL children that is affordable and easy to use
* Help for families with low and moderate incomes to cover the costs of health coverage and reasonable limits on out-of-pocket expenses
Health reform without these components will be a flop! Or as famous chef Julia Child said, “A cookbook is only as good as its worst recipe.” Let’s make sure that the Baucus proposal has a successful recipe for our nation’s health reform!
Send a letter to Congress now! http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27304
And please forward this message on to your friends and family. This is a critical moment for our nation’s future! Let’s make sure all our families’ voices are heard.
Thanks for your work on behalf of all families!
–Donna, Julia, Ashley, Dionna, Anita, and Kristin
P.S. Check out these great blogs from our healthcare blog carnival last week! http://www.momsrising.org/blog/healthcare-blog-carnival/
P.P.S. Thanks to the National Women’s Law Center, Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, National Council of La Raza, First Focus, Children’s Defense Fund, Voices for America’s Children, and Health Care for America Now for their help with this message!
10 Comments
@Kaylee, you look like you know what you are talking about. Would you mind sending me your e-mail? I would like to speak more with you.
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December 10, 2009 at 6:40 pm by muscle relaxerYou need think about it. Despite the emails, the overwhelming evidence showing global warming is happening hasn’t changed.
“The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity,” Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don’t cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
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September 23, 2009 at 11:40 am by PatriotThe recipe analogy would be great if we assume that everybody could choose whether or not they want to eat cake! But the public option shoves cake down our throats! (H.R. 3200, page 145 lines 15-17, page 149 lines 16-24, page 150 lines 9-13, page 167 lines 18-23.)
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Donna Norton Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:41 am
@Patriot, the public option is just that, an option. If you have employer sponsored coverage now, you wouldn’t even be able to choose the public option under current versions of the bill, let alone be forced to accept it.
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Patriot Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
@Donna Norton, Please cite the pages and lines of the bill that support your statement. It is in direct contradiction to the citations that I wrote, which prove that this proposed health care is not an option. In case you and others did not read the specific citations yet:
1. Force individual Americans to obtain health insurance, whether they want it or not. This is not an option for any U.S. citizen. (Pg. 167, lines 18-23 — ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable healthcare according to the government will be taxed 2.5% of income.)
2. Force businesses to pay the premium, for either the private plan (Pg. 144, lines 5-8) or the govt. plan (Pg. 144, lines 9-17). This is not an option for the business. This will make the smallest businesses fold first. Larger businesses will not be able to compete with low premiums that the government will command just by sheer numbers. Private insurance companies will fold, and the only insurance left will be the government plan (or maybe concierge medicine for the uber-wealthy, like what Congress uses). It is predicted that this will happen in as little as 2 –3 years, maybe take as long as 4 – 5 years.
3. Force every business to pay taxes for the government plan. This is not an option. (Pp. 149-150, lines 16-24 — any employer with payroll $400k and above pays 8% tax on all payroll, all the way down to businesses with payroll $251k – $400k pays 2 – 6% tax on all payroll.)
4. Force every business to auto-enroll each employee in the cheapest plan (i.e., govt. plan) if the employee hasn’t actively selected one. Not an option. (Pp. 145-148).
5. Force private insurance out of business (i.e., only govt. plan will be left). (Pg. 151, lines 7-19 — The government can “induce” individuals to take the govt. plan instead of the private one.)
6. Prevent companies from suing the government for monopolizing health care, which, as we all know, is all about eliminating options. (Pg. 124, lines 24-25 — No company can sue the government on price fixing. No judicial review against govt. monopoly.)
This doesn’t even scratch the surface. There are items that make government direct access to your financial accounts MANDATORY. NO OPTION. And NO JUDICIAL REVIEW ALLOWED when government sets payment rates (Pg. 124).
So, please, cite the parts of this plan that support your assessment.
The public option is called a public option because the name is designed to get the legislation passed. Many bills are named the OPPOSITE of the authors’ intent, a common marketing tactic. If this program truly is for those who don’t have insurance, why are the rest of us regulated?
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Anita Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 3:14 am
We’ve noticed comments coming from your IP address that use different names and email addresses. This practice is known as sockpuppetry. It is a bannable offense because it undermines the trust required for honest conversation that we work to nurture on our blog. If we notice another instance of sockpuppetry from your IP address, we will ban comments from that IP address. Sockpuppetry violates our website’s Terms of Use. Thank you for understanding.
patriot Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Anita, you did not leave a reply address, nor was this message sent to me directly, so a timely response was not possible. I wear many hats: homeschool mom, software designer, property manager, political activist, to name a few. I have separate mailboxes for each activity to help organize my mail. You will note that all my messages come from jumpingweasel.com. More than likely, the dialog began in my general mailbox, and I moved it to my political mailbox. In addition, all my sources are verifiable and easily accessible. Dynamic IP addresses are ubiquitous, and help prevent spam. Thus, I am not using “sockpuppetry” or any other trickery to promote a sinister agenda. You can ban my messages; you do not need to justify it — so far, we still enjoy that right in America. But if you want a balanced blog, based on facts as much as opinion, you can continue to allow my replies. You may contact me directly at patriot@jumpingweasel.com if you have further questions, and we can address your concerns in a private setting, if you prefer.
“We’ve noticed comments coming from your IP address that use different names and email addresses. This practice is known as sockpuppetry. It is a bannable offense because it undermines the trust required for honest conversation that we work to nurture on our blog. If we notice another instance of sockpuppetry from your IP address, we will ban comments from that IP address. Sockpuppetry violates our website’s Terms of Use. Thank you for understanding.”
This is really helpful and informative, Donna. I’m not much of a baker, either, but I do care about healthcare for kids, and I appreciate your guidance…
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September 23, 2009 at 10:39 am by JulieAre we out of ideas to draw attention to this topic?
I am a baker and yes, love Julia Child as much as the next person – but as far as I know she did not have a public nor professional opinion on healthcare. She wasn’t even a mother (although I did think of her as a mother figure in my kitchen).
Love the message (YES we need a public option) but the message is lost when we drag poor Julia into the fray.
When you are ready to talk about the quality (or lack thereof) of food in the country, then yes, by all means – invoke the spirit of Ms. Child.
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Donna Norton Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:44 am
@Julie, I was concerned about fixing the Baucus bill and baking a Betty Crocker cake for my son’s 7th birthday yesterday (in the shape of a caterpiller, no less,) so the connection worked for me, but I’m sure it didn’t work for everyone. Thanks for the feedback!
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