Top executives for company seeking to buy Blue Cross Blue Shield MT made $59 million in 2012

The top 10 highest paid executives of the Illinois-based company seeking to buy Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana made a combined $59 million in salaries and bonuses in 2012, according to Illinois state records.

Illinois-based Health Care Service Corporation is in the process of trying to acquire BCBSMT, Montana’s largest health insurance provider, and is seeking approval from State Auditor Monica Lindeen and Attorney General Tim Fox.

Lindeen’s office last month requested that executive compensation information for HCSC’s top executives be part of the record as state regulators consider whether the merger is in the best interest of Montanans.

“We think Montanans have a right to know what the executives of a potential acquirer of nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana make,” said Lindeen’s chief legal counsel, Jesse Laslovich. “We already know what chief executives at Blue Cross Blue Shield make and we think that information ought to be consistent.”

Chicago-based HCSC, the nation’s fourth-largest insurer, is a coalition of Blue Cross plans in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma and has 13 million customers. Blue Cross in Montana has 270,000 customers.

Former Supreme Court Justice William Leaphart presided over hearings in the case in February and March. Late last month Laslovich asked Leaphart to include the executive pay information in the official record for regulators to consider. HCSC on Thursday filed a brief resisting that request, arguing the information has no bearing on the proposed merger.

HCSC’s attorneys argued to Leaphart that HCSC employees, including its executives, have a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Montana Constitution that should protect their compensation information, even though the information is public under Illinois law.

“During the public hearing this information was sealed to preserve the privacy expected under the Montana law,” said HCSC spokesman Greg Thompson. “We provided it solely in the interest of cooperating in our ongoing discussions with regulators, and therefore the individual employee compensation should not be publicly disclosed.”

Thompson said HCSC is the nation’s largest customer-owned health insurer, with total gross revenues of approximately $52 billion for all lines of business.

“For every dollar we receive in revenue, a small fraction of a penny goes to executive compensation,” Thompson said.

Laslovich, who had seen the executive pay information prior to it being sealed in the Montana case, said the information is significant because HCSC’s top executive made nearly as much in 2012 as the amount the company was initially willing to pay for the entire book of business for BCBSMT.

“That factors into the ultimate recommendation we’ll be making to Justice Leaphart,” Laslovich said. “It goes to the commitment we have to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana plan and ultimately the Montanans who are insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana.”

HCSC originally agreed to pay $17.6 million when it announced last year that it would buy BCBSMT. The company later agreed to build a 100-employee call center in Great Falls and pay an additional $23 million to acquire BCBSMT if state regulators signed off on the deal by the end of last month.

On March 31 the company announced that it was scrapping plans for the call center because Montana regulators hadn’t given the company reasonable assurances that the deal would approved.

The Great Falls Tribune obtained a document from the Illinois Department of Insurance that shows HCSC’s top executive, CEO Patricia Hemingway Hall, took home $16 million in 2012. According to the filing, $14.9 million of that came in the form of bonuses.

Hall’s pay jumped nearly 20 percent from 2011, when she made $12.9 million in total compensation, including $11.8 million in bonuses.

In 2011 Hall earned $8 million in pay, and $7 million of that came from bonuses.

According to records filed in Montana, BCBSMT’s top executive, CEO Michael Frank, took home $635,298 in 2012, of which $213,059 came in the form of bonuses.

Frank earned $514,226 in 2011, of which $102,924 was bonus payments. In 2010 Frank took home $416,100, including $46,441 in bonuses.

Laslovich said Lindeen’s office will submit its recommended findings to Leaphart on April 19.

View HCSC's 2012 Supplemental Compensation Exhibit

View BCBSMT's 2012 Supplemental Compensation Exhibit

Details of Baucus health care plan coming to light

ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl has seen a draft of Baucus' proposed health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus was reportedly going to meet with the so-called "Gang of Six" this afternoon and give them a take-it-or-leave it proposition for the bill, according to George Stephanopoulos.

According to Karl, here are some of the key points in the bill:

- By 2013, Americans would be required to have health insurance or pay a fine. Depending on income level, the fines could be as high as $3800 per family.

- Native Americans, the very poor and those with religious objections are exempt from this new mandate.

- There’s no mandate on companies to provide insurance to their employees.

- Health insurance companies bear a big share of the costs with two new taxes:

• A $6 billion annual tax that will be divided among companies based on market share
• A tax on so-called Cadillac plans; insurance plans valued at more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family of four.

- Expansion of Medicaid to those up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

- Federal subsidies to help those up to 300 percent of the poverty level buy insurance

- No new government-run insurance program, aka “public option”

- As an alternative to the public option, the bill creates and funds non-profit “cooperatives” that will provide insurance coverage

- New regulations on insurance companies: e.g. Bans denial of coverage or higher rates b/c of pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies would still be allowed, however, to charge higher rates for smokers.

Baucus' plan is already taking a heat from the left.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, President Obama was meeting with Democratic leaders on the eve of his major health care speech tomorrow to plot a strategy for pushing health care reform forward. The White House wouldn't comment on how Baucus' plan fits into the mix.

Administration officials have declined to discuss in depth either Mr. Baucus’s plan or the president’s speech, which Mr. Obama will deliver Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress. But the officials welcomed Mr. Baucus’s draft as important progress just as lawmakers are returning this week from their summer recess.

Stay tuned.

784 tickets snapped up in a hurry for Obama's Bozeman town hall

I just got back from Belgrade and Bozeman where hundreds of people lined up to get tickets to President Barack Obama’s health care town hall meeting tomorrow. Here are a few notes from the scene. (Their will be more in tomorrow’s Great Falls Tribune).

I arrived at the Belgrade City Hall at about 8:15 a.m. By the time I parked my car and walked the three blocks to City Hall, the hundreds of people who were in line were already dispersing. The media advisory said tickets would be made available at 9 a.m., but by 8:15 a.m. they were all snapped up.

The man who was informing people in line that the tickets were gone said there were only 150 tickets available at the Belgrade City Hall.

Most of the people who got the tickets had been in line since yesterday afternoon. Great Falls resident Walter Brown, 86, and his wheelchair-bound grandson, Patrick McCarthy, 21, were in line by 4 p.m. Wednesday. (More on Walter and Patrick in tomorrow’s Trib).

The vast majority of people in line—including those who got tickets—appeared to be Obama supporters. I did talk to a Helena couple opposed to the President’s health care plan who got tickets. I didn’t get the sense that there were many opponents—Tea Party members or otherwise—waiting in line for tickets.

By the time I got to Bozeman, at about 9:05 a.m., the line at city hall was gone. There were still a few people standing around signing petitions in favor of health care reform, but the tickets went fast. The police officers who were managing the scene said there were only 634 tickets available. Since each person could get two tickets, that means only 317 or so were lucky enough to get tickets in Bozeman, and 75 people scored tickets in Belgrade.

I called the White House press office to try to find out how many people in all will be invited to the event, but I haven’t heard back. Rumor has it there will be a lot more than 784 people at the event, but I haven’t confirmed that.

Keep checking The Lowdown for the latest information and be sure to read tomorrow’s Great Falls Tribune for news and analysis of President Barack Obama’s health care town hall. I'll bring the laptop and hopefully I'll be able to do a bit of blogging from the scene. No promises on that front though. It could get crazy.

Obama town hall details, ticket information released

Just in from White House press office:

First Family to Arrive in Montana, President Obama to Hold Health Care Town Hall

WASHINGTON – On Friday August 14, 2009, President Barack Obama and the First Family will arrive in Montana and President Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Belgrade. At the President’s town hall, he will discuss how under health insurance reform, insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill. To read more about consumer protections under health insurance reform, click here: LINK.

After Montana, the First Family will travel to Yellowstone, WY and Grand Junction, CO where the President will hold a town hall on eliminating unlimited out of pocket costs such as co-pays and deductibles. They will also travel to the Grand Canyon and Phoenix, AZ before returning to Washington. Earlier this week, the President held a town hall in Portsmouth, NH that was focused on how under health insurance reform, there will be no discrimination for pre-existing conditions – that insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.

[The event is at the Belgrade Airport]

Gates Open: 10:45 a.m. local time

Program Begins: 12:55 p.m. local time

Members of the general public: The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are required and will be available at the following ticket distribution location beginning at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, August 13. Tickets will be limited to two per person and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Bozeman City Hall

121 N Rouse St.

Bozeman, MT 59715

Belgrade City Hall

91 E Central Ave.

Belgrade, MT

For security reasons, do not bring bags and limit personal items. No signs or banners permitted. All attendees will go through airport-like security. Due to limited space at the event the White House will only be able to fulfill a limited number of requests for tickets. Tickets are not for sale or re-sale.

General Public Parking: Limited, but on site.

Groups opposed to Democrats' health care reform proposals plan to attend Obama event in Bozeman

President Barack Obama’s reported visit to Bozeman next week could face the same kind of disruptions Democratic members of Congress are dealing with around the country as lawmakers head back to their districts for their August recess.

As Democrats and Republicans continue to battle over national health care reform, conservative groups are descending on "town hall” meetings and doing their best to heckle Democratic lawmakers and disrupt their listening sessions.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25646.html#ixzz0NQPM8jYM

The White House won’t confirm Obama’s visit to Montana, but multiple sources are reporting that Obama plans to hold some kind of town hall meeting at an airport hanger in Bozeman on Aug. 14. Most observers believe Obama is coming to Montana to push his plan for health care reform. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus is the Senate’s point man on reform, and so far bipartisan negotiations between three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee have failed to produce a bipartisan bill. Baucus reportedly set Sept. 15 as the deadline for the so-called “gang of six” to strike a deal on a reform bill.

Last night on NBC Nightly News, Obama indicated that if a bipartisan deal can’t be reached, then he’s willing to move forward on reform without the support of Republicans.

"I am glad that in the Senate Finance Committee there have been a couple of Republicans … who've been willing to negotiate with Democrats to try to produce a bill," Obama told NBC News on Wednesday. "But they haven't yet. And I think at some point, some time in September, we're just going to have to make an assessment."

"I would prefer Republicans working with us on that, because I think it's in the interest of everybody. It shouldn't be a partisan issue," he added in the interview. "The bottom line is the American people, the American economy, and the federal budget, have to have some sort of reforms in the health-care system. And failure is not an option this year."

You can watch the full interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd in the video lower down in this post.

Meanwhile, conservative groups opposed to Obama’s health care reform plans are now mobilizing in Montana. I just received this from “Americans for Prosperity,” a well-funded anti-reform group that also helped organize anti-tax “tea party” protests around the state and country earlier this year:

As Montana’s Congressional Delegation travels back home over the legislative recess to hear from their constituents, Americans for Prosperity’s Patients First Bus Tour will hit the road, too. The tour will urge grassroots activists to speak out on behalf of patients and against a government takeover of health care.

“Montanans are fired up about health care, and the bus tour gives more people the opportunity to come out and get involved,” said Abby Markham, spokesperson for Patients First’s Montana effort. “They’ve heard enough proposals from Washington that give government all the decision-making power. It is time for citizens to tell Congress to stop, turn around, and pursue real reforms that put patients first.”

The group plans to send a bus to the Obama event in Bozeman. You can read the full release along with bus stop dates and locations here.

According to Media Matters for America—a “Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”—the town hall disruptions are part of an organized campaign by conservative anti-reform groups.

Conservative organizations opposed to health care reform -- including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and Conservatives for Patients' Rights -- are conducting a campaign to turn out their supporters to attend those events. CPR has reportedly "confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform," while FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have reportedly "organized" the town hall protestors and are "harnessing social networking Web sites to organize their supporters in much the same way Mr. Obama did during his election campaign." [Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, 8/4/09; The New York Times, 8/3/09]

I’ll keep updating The Lowdown as I learn more about Obama’s visit.

Here's the NBC interview with Obama:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama coming to Montana

Numerous blogs are reporting that President Barack Obama will be in Bozeman next week. (I believe Missoula blogger jhwygirl of 4and20blackbirds broke the news last night.)

According to the reports, Obama will be in Bozeman on August 14 for a town hall meeting. KECI in Missoula has confirmed the reports.

Details are fuzzy, but according to 4and20blackbirds, Obama and his wife Michelle will be taking part in a town hall meeting at an airport hangar. Then Obama is supposedly heading to Big Sky—or thereabouts—to meet with Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester.

I haven’t been able to confirm any of this with Tester or Baucus’ people.

The purpose of Obama’s visit is unclear, but you could probably place a safe bet that health care reform will top the President’s agenda.

Baucus has been spearheading “bipartisan” negotiations on health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee and he’s been taking a lot of heat from the left in the process. The Hill recently reported that some liberal Democrats in Congress are threatening to implement a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels. The Hill said the move was a warning to Baucus to stop bending to GOP demands on health care legislation.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that Obama and the Democrats are beginning to lose patience with the bipartisan negotiations.

Baucus said a bipartisan bill remains Obama's "predilection," but he said that at a White House lunch today with Democratic senators the president expressed concerns about whether the goal was attainable. A coalition of six Finance senators -- three from each party -- are seeking a deal that would produce the consensus version of health-care reform. Baucus has set a Sept. 15 deadline for the group to complete its work.

"There may come a time after some time later this year, we may have to make other decisions," Baucus said. He said Obama "wants results." "He's not going to just keep negotiating something that's not getting anywhere," Baucus said. "But that's a judgment call."

I’ll update The Lowdown as soon as I have more details about Obama’s visit to Montana.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with the White House press office. "We don't have anything to report..." was the word from on high, but I got the sense that President Obama is planning something here in Montana. Baucus and Tester's staffers have not confirmed anything either at this point though I imagine we'll hear something this week.

“Camp Baucus” could have a raucous welcoming committee

Political donors from across the country will descend on Big Sky tomorrow for the 10th Annual “Camp Baucus” fundraiser. Here’s a link to the invitation.

But in order to get to Big Sky Resort, the site of the three-day hike/fish/horseback ride event, donors will have to drive Big Sky Highway past dozens of single-payer health care reform advocates who are steamed over the direction Congress is taking on reform.

Max Baucus, as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, is the Senate’s point man on health care reform. For weeks hand-picked members of his committee have been meeting behind closed doors to hash out some a compromise on a reform bill.

At that same time, Baucus is busy raising money for his 2014 Senate campaign. Baucus’ people aren’t saying who’ll be at the event, but if you look at the list of industries that gave most to Glacier PAC in recent years you’ll find that health professionals, pharmaceutical/health products, insurance companies, and hospitals and nursing homes top the list. Organizers of Friday’s protest expect lobbyists and executives from those industries will be driving up Highway 64 on Friday.

"A lot of biggies show up at these events. When Max has a fundraiser, they show up. That's what we're trying to bring attention to," said Gene Fenderson of Helena, a retired labor leader and co-founder of Montanans for Single Payer.

Fenderson, one of the chief organizer of the rally, said protesters will line the road holding signs with slogans that read "Buy Back Baucus" as well as large scale faux checks that read "Max — A seat at the table. What does it cost? $4 million. Buy Back Our Senator!"

According to the invitation for Camp Baucus, the event is billed as "a trip for the whole family" where attendees will "enjoy Big Sky's fly fishing, golf, horseback riding and great hiking." The minimum "requested contribution" to Glacier PAC — Baucus' primary political action committee — is $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for PACs.

Baucus’ people say the event isn’t as unseemly as Fenderson and other activists make it out to be because A) Max can’t be bought, B) Camp Baucus was scheduled long before Congress got tangled up in health care reform negotiations, and C) political fundraising is a necessary part of politics.

"Max's number one priority is crafting a health care bill that lowers costs, improves quality and can pass the U.S. Senate," said Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf. "He is keeping his eye on the ball and staying focused on the task at hand to help the thousands of Montanans who are being crushed by the high cost of health care."

Reform advocates say the fact that Baucus has taken more money from the health and insurance sectors than any other Democrat in Congress — more than $3 million from the health and insurance sectors from 2003 to 2008 — should disqualify him from leading reform efforts in the Senate.

Fenderson said it's inappropriate for Baucus to hold an upscale fundraiser with lobbyists from the health care sector at a time when his committee is in the process of drafting a national health care reform bill.

"We don't get the money from the corporations to bring forward our position, so this is the way we have to do it," Fenderson said.

Here’s a link to the “action alert” for the Camp Baucus protest.

Missoula blogger seeks Executive Director post for Montana Democratic Party

Matt Singer, a prominent Democratic blogger for Left in the West and CEO of the Missoula-based political group Forward Montana, is apparently vying for the post of executive director of the Montana Democratic Party.

Sources who were at a "meeting of progressive Democrats” in Missoula on Tuesday night told me that Singer showed up—on warm summer evening—donning cowboy boots and jeans and announced that he would seek the post. According to one source, “he looked just like Jon Tester or Brian Schweitzer" --wardrobe wise.

I wrote a profile of Singer a few years back when I was still at the Missoula Independent. (Back then he was donning pink bunny ears for a voter registration drive). The gist of the piece was that Singer, at the time a 24-year-old blogger and activist, was going places in Montana Democratic politics. His web-savvy approach to politics had landed him a job with then-U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester early in Tester’s campaign.

“He’s one smart dude,” Tester said of Singer. “He’s very talented. I think what he’s accomplished using Internet as a vehicle for political action speaks for itself as far as success.”

Not longer after working for Tester, Singer and a handful of young Democrats from Missoula launched Forward Montana.

I hadn’t gone back and looked at that article in a while. When I did, I noticed this reader comment posted shortly after the article ran:

By Anony Moose 11-15-07

Be interesting to see if Forward Montana stays true to its progressive roots or is co-opted by Democratic party insiders. Will stay tuned.

Interesting indeed.

Right now there’s a battle waging within the Democratic Party over health care reform. Max Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee, making Montana one of the bloodiest battlegrounds. Groups like the Montana Human Rights Network, Montanans for Single-Payer and MEA-MFT (the state’s largest labor union), have been fiercely advocating for a single-payer, or Medicare-for-all solution to the health care crisis. But Baucus and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment want a “uniquely American” health care reform package that maintains the existing for-profit insurance industry. Baucus has taken a lot of flak from the left flank of his party for his refusal to consider single-payer. So much so that he felt compelled to respond in a recent Missoulian op-ed piece.

Singer is firmly backing Baucus in his approach to health care reform both behind the scenes and on his blog. For that, Singer is also taking heat from the left.

It’ll be interesting to see how the health care debate plays out and how liberals react to Singer if he does ascend to a top post in the state party.

This week in health care reform

Single-payer gets a hearing

Tomorrow morning the House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is holding a hearing to examine the single-payer health care option.

Single-payer advocates across the country are thrilled, because tomorrow’s hearing marks the first time Congress has opened the door and invited them to officially take part in the health care reform discussion.

Anyone who has followed this raging debate over the past couple months knows that Montana’s Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has thus far refused to consider single-payer or even let single-payer advocates take part in Senate hearings.

Last month Baucus had 13 protesters arrested for disrupting two committee hearings and demanding that Baucus include single-payer in the discussion.

That incident, and Baucus' refusal to include single-payer, sparked protests across Montana last week:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Are Baucus and Obama parting ways on the "public option"?

In a letter sent to Baucus and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy last week, Obama said he wants any bill that reaches his desk to include a strong public option. Baucus has previously said he supports the idea of a public option, in which the federal government would manage a health insurance plan that would compete alongside private insurance companies. But Baucus has also insisted that any bill that makes it out of the Senate Finance Committee has to be a "bi-partisan" bill. So far, conservatives in Congress are lining up to oppose that idea.

Now, according to this New York Times interview with Baucus and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the finance committee, Baucus appears to be backing off his support of a public plan. Here's what he had to say about it (it's at the 6:20 mark in the video):

"Now some suggest that maybe this so-called public option is necessary to keep insurance companies feet to the fire. That's an argument that we hear around here. My point is that there is less need for that...if we really do a good job reforming the health insurance industry."

Less need for public option? Is that Obama's position? Baucus should know what's on Obama's mind, because after all Baucus’ former chief of staff, Jim Messina, is now Obama's deputy chief of staff. And as New York Times Magazine Washington correspondent Matt Bai pointed out on the News Hour last night, the relationship between Baucus, Messina and Obama is not “incidental," especially when it comes to health care reform.

“Jim Messina is the deputy chief of staff in the White House. He's also not just a former chief of staff for Senator Baucus. Senator Baucus at one point has said this is like another son to him.

And so that's been, I think, critical, because, you know, the president and Senator Baucus do not have a strong relationship. They didn't know each other well in the Senate. But they've put a lot of effort into building that relationship in the last couple months, and a key part of that is him being able to call his former confidante and either vent, or get something across, or hear what's being thought on the other side.”

So is Baucus now indicating a split with the president, or is Obama feigning support for a public plan?

What happened to support for single-payer?

At one time, Obama was a "proponent of a single-payer universal health care program." At least that's what he told the crowd at a 2003 AFL-CIO convention when he was running for the U.S. Senate:

If you watch the video all the way through, you'll note that Obama tells the crowd that "we may not get there immediately, because first we have to take back the White House, and we've got to take back the Senate."

White House: Check.
Senate: Check.
Congress: Check.

So why is Obama, via Max Baucus, now running from an idea he once supported? Democrats control Washington, and if Al Franken is declared in the winner in the still-as-yet-to-be-decided Minnesota Senate Race, Obama—along with the help of two Democrat-leaning independents—will have a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

Hypothetically, if Congress were to somehow pass a single-payer bill, does anyone believe that Obama wouldn't sign it? I highly doubt that Obama would use his veto pen for the first time on a piece of legislation that he has vocally supported in the past, and one that, if you believe the polls (and here, and here, and here), is supported by the majority of Americans.

Singler-payer advocates rally in Montana

Single-payer advocates held rallies in front of Sen. Max Baucus' field offices around the state on Friday. At the Helena event, protesters chanted "Hey hey, hey ho, health care's a right that's worth a fight," among other clever ditties, as they held signs criticizing Bacaus' refusal to include single-payer in the national health care reform debate. Labor leaders and human rights groups said Baucus will ignore single-payer at his own political peril. More on the Friday's protests in Saturday's dead-tree edition of the Tribune.

Baucus meeting with single-payer advocates

As I write this, a group of prominent single-payer advocates are meeting with Sen. Max Baucus to try to convince him to put single-payer on the table.

However, Clark Newhall, a Salt Lake City attorney, doctor and single-payer crusader, beat them to the punch this morning. Newhall was one of the first people in the country to publicly question Baucus on his affirmed stance that single-payer is off the table (here's the video). This morning Newhall attended Baucus' public breakfast in Washington, D.C. and challenged the Senate Finance Committee chairman on his position. Newhall sent me this e-mail immediately following the meeting (the embedded linke is mine):

Washington DC -- June 3 -- 8:30 a.m.

I just spoke with Max Baucus at length about single payer. More accurately, I listened to his views and tried to challenge them. Based on that conversation, I predict the following will happen today at the meeting that Marcia Angell, David Himmelstein, Oliver Fein, Geri Jenkins and RoseAnn DeMoro are having with him.

1 -- he will say what a candid and honest guy he is.

2 -- he will say that N-O-B-O-D-Y will vote for single payer in the Senate.

3 -- he will say that N-O-B-O-D-Y has a single payer bill in the Senate; he will not acknowledge SB 703.

4 -- he will say that the "60% of physicians want single payer"
statistic is false.

5 -- he will say that the American people do not want single payer.

6 -- he will say he knows the American people don't want single payer because politicians have a nose for what their constituencies want, mainly because most politicians want to get re-elected.

7 -- he will get nervous if anyone mentions the overwhelming support for single payer that the recent 'listening tour' in Montana revealed.

8 -- he will say that Americans are used to having employer-paid health insurance, and do not want to change.

9 -- he will deny that Medicare is 'uniquely American' and will shy away from using that phrase.

10 -- he will admit that the power of insurance companies has something to do with how the legislation is being shaped in the Senate but, when pressed on that, will reverse position.

11 -- he will rely heavily for his position on the proposition that Obama does not want single payer, and he may point to the recent flat statement of Obama to Sherrod Brown that single payer is off the table.

12 -- he will be obdurately and obstinately close-minded to facts, arguments and moral suasion.

13 -- he will act very involved and interested when the talk turns to 'paying for this' but will deny that single payer pays for itself.

14 -- he will give the impression that removing employer tax breaks for health insurance in some fashion is likely.

Those are my predictions. Let's see how close to the mark they are.

Newhall said he personally spent nearly $60,000 producing and running a series of television and internet ads –which are currently running on CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, The Game Show Network and other cable networks—promoting single payer. You can see the ads here. Newhall said those ads have generated more than 67,000 faxes to members of Congress.

“I’ve also collected something like 4,000 voice mails, transcribed them all, sent them off to Baucus and Obama. I just hand delivered about 2,000 of them this morning to Baucus,” Newhall said this morning.

I asked him if he thought any of it was getting through.

“F*** no,” Newhall said.

I’ll be following up on today’s meeting between Baucus and single-payer advocates later today. I’ll let you know if Newhall’s predictions came true.

On a related note:

Eight-one percent of respondents to an unscientific poll currently up on the Missoulian's Web site say single-payer should be included among the options for health care reform. In a similar unscientific poll in the Tribune two weeks ago (no link to the poll results, but here's the forum), 57 percent of respondents said single-payer should be considered.

Baucus to meet with single-payer advocates

According to the group Single Payer Action, Sen. Max Baucus is planning to meet with five prominent single-payer advocates in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Dr. Marcia Angell—the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and one of the nation’s most outspoken proponents of single-payer—confirmed the meeting with me this morning in via e-mail.

According to Single Payer Action:

On Wednesday June 3, Senator Baucus will meet with Dr. David Himmelstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Dr. Marcia Angell, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Oliver Fein, Associate Dean, Cornell Weill Medical School, and President of PNHP, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, and Geri Jenkins, president of California Nurses Association.

“Bowing to mounting pressure from single payer advocates around the nation, Senator Baucus has asked to meet with some representatives of the single payer movement,” Dr. Himmelstein said. “It’s the thirteen people who braved arrest at Senate Finance Committee hearing, the hundreds of single payer supporters who’ve shadowed Senator Baucus in his home state of Montana, and the thousands who have put pressure other members of Congress who have created this opening. We have no illusions that our discussions alone will persuade Senator Baucus to back a single payer bill. But the meeting is a clear indication that demonstrations and activism can move even our money-corrupted political culture.”

I don’t know that I have seen a movement in Montana as genuinely grass-roots as the single-payer advocacy I’ve seen in recent weeks. All you had to do was attend one of the 20 listening sessions Baucus’ staff held around the state last week (see photo above: The majority of participants at a health care listening session in Anaconda raised their hands when asked by a member of the audience if they think all Americans — including members of Congress and the president — should have the same level of health insurance coverage). These weren’t highly organized volunteers of some political action group. In fact, Phil Campbell, one of the primary organizers of Montanans for Single Payer, wasn’t even in the state at the time the hearings took place. He and his wife were hiking in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

Apparently, the single-payer advocates’ efforts have at least cracked open the door.

At the same time a corporate-funded organization called Patients United Now—a group fighting to halt health care reform—had a hard time drawing more than 30 people to a rally in downtown Helena on Friday. And they enticed people with the promise of free food.