Last night, the Boise City Council—with a tie-breaking vote from Mayor Dave Bieter—passed a resolution calling for health care reform.

Television covered it, but print, apparently did not. Sorry.

According to KBCI-2, Maryanne Jordan, David Eberle and Elaine Clegg supported the measure and Jim Tibbs, Alan Shealy and Vern Bisterfeldt voted against it. Bieter broke the tie saying that health insurance costs for city workers continues to rise almost 15 percent a year, robbing cash from other city functions.

Thirty-four people testified on the resolution, mostly against, according to city spokesman Adam Park. Each was given two minutes to state their piece.

KTVB-7 reports that:

This year, healthcare expenses for city workers will reach $13.9 million.
By 2012, it's estimated it'll cost $16.8 million - a cost that be passed on to taxpayers.
“That money comes out of funds for the parks, funds for police, funds for fire, funds for our library system,” Bieter said. “There's a limited amount of money and that detracts from all the services we offer. So it really is an issue that affects us directly.”

Many of the candidates for the City Council election in November spoke against the resolution. A Tea Party Boise co-founder was also in attendence, according to KIVI-6: "This is meant to show Washington where Boise stands where Idaho stands and this is not the way we feel at all," Tea Party Boise co-founder Brendon Smythe said. (We especially like the comment posted by "Gene Fadness" (is it THE Gene Fadness, or a wannabe) on KIVI's story: "Basic to any story — WHO VOTED FOR AND WHO VOTED AGAINST????")

Channel 2 is the only station that named names, by the way.

Candidate Dan Dunham sent this quote to the Guardian:

“As a city council candidate, I want to remind Mr. Mayor that your job deals with our city. You should be concerned with the local economy, local housing issues, the city budget, and ways that you can actually affect the quality of life for city residents.

When I am elected to the city council, I will not support this kind of “NOT IN MY JOB DISCRIPTION” waste of city resources. My only hope is that the national attention you seek will be as good as the attention you gave to public testimony tonight.”

UPDATE:

The White House just sent out updated health care stats for Idaho:

The status quo is not an option. The number of uninsured in Idaho has increased from 204,000 in 2001 to 236,000 in 2008. The percent of non-elderly adults without insurance increased from 20.3 % to 21.9 %. And this number only considers people who are uninsured for an entire year — it does not include people in Idaho who have more recently lost coverage through the recession, or who had shorter gaps in their coverage.

Private coverage is eroding under the status quo. The percentage of people with employer-based coverage decreased from 71.3% of the population in 2001 to 71.1% in 2008.

More workers are being left without protection from health care costs. Too many workers in Idaho do not have health coverage, at 151,000 in 2008. More than one in five workers in Idaho lack insurance.

The problem of the uninsured is a problem that crosses income brackets. The new Census numbers also drive home the fact that everyone in Idaho is vulnerable to losing health insurance. An additional 17,500 people from high-income households are now uninsured.

UPDATE II
Statesman covered the meeting too, just couldn't find the link this morning.

The Boise City Council will consider a position statement on health care reform tonight at its 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall. The resolution is being urged in towns across the nation by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

City Council candidate Lucas Baumbach takes exception with the resolution and urges his supporters to "Give the Obama-supporter mayor" a piece of their mind.

"This is not a city function. The city council is a runaway train! Kick the bums out!" Baumbach wrote.

For more on Baumbach and the rest of the Council candidates (there are 10, by the way), read BW tomorrow.

The mayor's resolution calls for insurance market reforms to help keep costs down, specifically for public employers like the city. But it also calls for expansion of public sector health care programs and a new public health plan option.

Read the whole thing below.

Advocates for single-payer national insurance will stage a die-in tomorrow from 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. outside Regence Blue Shield of Idaho, 1211 W Myrtle St., in Boise.

The organizers claim that 60 Americans die every day from a lack of health coverage and hope to have at least 60 folks "dead" for the event.

Idaho Rep. Walt Minnick is planning to phone-in townhall meetings on health care reform during the August recess. They will be held on Aug. 19 and 31 at 7 p.m.

A live townhall meeting in Post Falls last week went well for Minnick, according to Northwest Public Radio [Listen here].

People here are skeptical about the government getting more involved in health care, but Minnick didn’t get the aggressive lobbying and even heckling that other members of Congress have received.

Minnick is not dodging the public on his position on health care reform with his phone calls, however. He is planning a face to face discussion as well.

"I also hope to announce soon an event organized specifically to bring together representatives from seemingly divergent interests for a serious and substantive discussion to find Idaho's 'common ground' on health care and how it is impacting our economy," Minnick said in a press release. "I want to take back to my colleagues in Washington, D.C., a set of principles to bridge the current divides, a set of principles upon which the vast majority of Idahoans can agree."

To get on one of the calls, contact your closest Minnick office:

Washington DC Office: (202) 225-6611
Meridian Office: (208) 888-3188
Lewiston Office: (208) 743-1388
Coeur d’Alene Office: (208) 667-0127

Dr. Joe Jarvis, head of the Utah Healthcare Initiative, spoke at City Club of Boise this afternoon and citydesk showed up, took a spot in the back and diligently took notes in our trusty reporter's notebook. Had we had the forethought to check Jarvis' blog this morning rather than late yesterday afternoon, we'd have seen his City Club comments posted in full bright and early at 5:42 a.m. this morning.

Idaho Health Care for All picked up the tab for Jarvis' Boise travel expenses, and for those who caught the talk but were disappointed not to have Jarvis' usual slideshow (which he ditched in deference to the Boise State Radio crowd listening in), Idaho Health Care for All will post the slides.

Jarvis, who's run unsuccessfully for office in Utah twice, has a simple message when it comes to health-care reform: Health care is not a commodity that is efficiently distributed by a marketplace and therefore it's not a question of if the system needs to change, but how.

In his City Club remarks, Jarvis hammered a few key points more than once, specifically that health-care spending is on an unsustainable trajectory, and in order to effect change, a new system must reign in waste. Seems simple enough, right?

The only caveat is that what Jarvis considers waste is what health corporations consider profit. And to keep status quo, those corporations spend, according to Jarvis, $1 million a year courting every member of Congress—and that figure does not include campaign contributions.

Jarvis, not surprisingly, is not impressed by what he sees being debated in Congress. He flat out says both Congress and President Obama are wrong to throw tax money into massive reform. The issue is not a lack of money to provide coverage, according to Jarvis, it's that too much money is spent.
"Per-capita health spending is twice as high as it is in any other nation, and rising faster, because we waste up to half our health spending on inefficiency and poor quality."

So what's the solution according to Jarvis? Well, he opposes socialized medicine for starters, but he said, market forces have no place in medicine. He does, however, argue that as members of a society, we have a shared social responsibility to care for the sick. We also have agreed that we have a shared social responsibility to build a functioning transportation system and we tax ourselves to create and upkeep that infrastructure, he said. No one has a Constitutional right to pavement, but we work together to make it happen, Jarvis said.

In conclusion, he did offer six health-care practices he says should be eliminated in order for a new system to be successful:
1. Health underwriting, or cost shifting
2. Unsafe hospitable practices, which is the fifth leading cause of death in the country (behind HIV, auto accidents and breast cancer)
3. Inappropriate, or superfluous care, especially when less expensive and equally successful options are available.
4. Perverse incentives (Jarvis cites a Wall Street Journal article that states: "Hospitals and doctors can make more money providing inefficient, mediocre care.")
5. Market-based health policy ("Shopping is perhaps the quintessential American experience, but patients are not shoppers.")
6. Benefit denial, or rescission, which is essentially the practice of dumping the sick.

After his speech, Jarvis also fielded a number of questions, in which touched on the importance of electronic medical records (very important, says Jarvis), the Canadian health-care system (flawed) and the Wyden-Bennett Bill (against it, because it will create Swiss-cheese coverage due to a lack of quality improvement and cost control measures).

Final words: the health-care change we need cannot be mandated entirely from the big boys in Washington, D.C. Quality improvement will come from those who are at patients' bedsides. Patients must take responsibility to consider all options. And most importantly, the profiteering must end.

Wendell Potter former Cigna exec tells Bill Moyers how health insurance companies have hijacked American's health-care system. See the full interview here.

Just found a great resource on the healthcare reform shenanigans in Washington D.C.

Slate.com's Timothy Noah has a page full of links to political, media and academic sources involved in the health reform debate. Highly recommended reading.

His references to GOP talking points and DEM talking points are particularly compelling and help explain why this effort is going nowhere fast.

¿Porque los pinche politicos en Washington no se hablan inglés?

In the midst of mind-blowing partisan douchebaggery in Washington, D.C., over healthcare reform, there will be a rally for universal health care tomorrow (Saturday) at noon in front of Boise City Hall.

The rally is organized by Idaho Healthcare for All, a group affiliated with the national Physicians for a National Health Program. That's right, a bunch of doctors who WANT socialized medicine. You can watch one of these docs on Colbert below:

One person who does not support socialized medicine: Idaho Rep. Walt Minnick, who opposes Obama's non-socialist House bill, that is now on hold anyway. Minnick's reformist wishlist:

· First, reforms must be fully funded.
· Second, comprehensive, affordable health insurance must be made available to all Americans.
· Third, no "socialized medicine.” The health care system of insurance must be private — not run by the government.
· Fourth, insurance companies must be required to make insurance available to everyone regardless of age, employment status or preconditions.
· And fifth, reforms must reduce costs, not just expand coverage.

Don't look for Minnick at the rally Saturday. But Boise Rep. Sue Chew, Boise State Prof. Martin Orr, Dr. Lou Schlickman and nurse Michael Vallez will share their viewpoint on healthcare.

By the way, the Wall Street Journal online is free today, so you can read their story on Wal-Mart endorsing the idea of mandatory employer health coverage for large employers.

Read it now, because tomorrow it may be back behind a firewall :-(

Here's the best line from the story:

The National Retail Federation, the industry's main lobby, said it was "flabbergasted" by Wal-Mart's move. "We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate," said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. "We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart's choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings."

We are kind of flabbergasted too, and want to know what the spin is all about. Like. now that Wal-Mart is Idaho's No. 2 largest employer, it would be huge if they offered decent health care to workers. Adam Cotterell at Boise State Radio did that story above and this one too, about Wal-Mart's "commitment" to Idaho, including purchasing local produce.

C'mon. The Department of Ag told Cotterell that Wally is the biggest buyer of Idaho produce, but then he can't find any at the Garden City store.

But back to health care, which Wal-Mart does not now provide, why back employer mandates?

As the White House and Congress began floating proposals, Wal-Mart felt it needed to shape the debate, said Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations.

"As a company, we believe the present health-care system is unsustainable and making the country's businesses less competitive in the global economy," said Mr. Dach, who delivered the letter Tuesday to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Mr. Dach is a former adviser to Democratic politicians.

So, they could cover their people cheaply, like they do everything else, and distract us from a real, national solution to health coverage by changing the debate.

Or maybe they should just sponsor the WSJ Web site to keep it free.