This Is What Change Looks Like

Rep. John Larson (CT) details 10 immediate benefits of health care reform:

1. Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
   
   
2. Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
   
3. Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
   
   
4. Lower seniors' prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
   
   
5. Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
   
   
6. Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
   
   
7. Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;
   
   
8. Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
   
   
9. Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
   
   
10. Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

David Frum, former speechwriter to President George W. Bush:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster....

.... No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat....

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