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I’m not a huge fan of the healthcare reform that is about to pass Congress. Without a public option, it’s just a huge handout to medical corporate interests (via the individual mandate) with a sprinkling of good stuff for the little guys (citizens). It seems now that we progressives begrudgingly support it only to hold on to a slight majority in both houses of Congress so that we might live to fight another day on other important topics (fat chance!).

That being said, one of the things that has irked me the most about the proposed healthcare bill is the delayed effect of the most important provisions by two, four, and six years. So, I was glad to see this today from Rep. John Larson, listing the Top 10 Immediate Benefits of Health Care Reform:

* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
* Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

* Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

* Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

* Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

* Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

* Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;

* Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

* Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

* Require premium rebates to enrolees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

As the Democratic Strategist notes:

The immediate benefits Larson cites are so good, so light-years ahead of where we are now. that memorizing just five of them and sharing the information with uncommitted voters should impress many of them enough to win their support. Emphasizing them to uncommitted House members can’t hurt either.

Bob Dole recently gave a speech in which he supported healthcare reform: “This is one of the most important measures members of Congress will vote on in their lifetimes,” Dole said, according to the Kansas City Star. “I want this to pass… I don’t agree with everything Obama is presenting, but we’ve got to do something.”

Other Republicans who’ve endorsed healthcare reform are:
Bill Frist (former Republican Senate leader)
Tommy Thompson (former Gov of Wisconsin and Bush’s HHS Secretary)
Mike Bloomberg (Republican turned Independent Mayor of NYC)

Salon.com has a good analysis of why and how these endorsements might matter:

“None of that is likely to make any difference in terms of attracting votes from Republicans in Congress now, of course. The current GOP caucus in both the House and Senate has made it clear that’s not in the cards. But the more support from prominent Republicans the legislation draws, the likelier it is that independent voters watching from home will feel comfortable with the reform proposals. And the more comfortable voters are with the reform proposals, the more comfortable moderate Democrats will be. So expect to hear quite a bit about all these various endorsements as the legislation moves along.”

Hrm, knowing this, I can’t imagine why he’d be opposed to the public option.

Oh, and Bing Perrine is hot.

Perhaps an oversimplification, but funny nonetheless.