As in, comment system on the...?

Would it be possible to sue Medicare based on age discrimination? The Social Secuirty Act of 1965 seems to be in violation, if not in letter at least in spirit, of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, considering that it won't cover anyone under the age of 65.

This seems to me to be rather blatant, Congressionally-mandated age discrimination of the very worst sort. Imagine, if you would, a program that offered Medicare to everyone except those over the age of 65. Such a program would be ruled, without a doubt, unconstitutional and illegal. So why isn't the reverse true? 

I don't know - that's why I'm asking.

 

I've seen several progressive bloggers lately, most recently Digby, state that the most important thing is to get universal coverage.

On a purely personal, utterly selfish level, this is not the most important thing to me. Or to 99% of the community. Health care costs are eating me alive, and I'm not even sick. I'm one chronic illness away from insolvency. I need healthcare I can afford, not healthcare that costs 1/3 of my net salary. I want a public option because it will be cheaper, because I haven't had a raise in almost five years, and I desperately need a raise to come from somewhere.

Truth is, you can't sell healthcare reform on an altruistic basis. When blogger like Digby (and I can't believe she actually wrote this) say that the public option isn't as important as making sure everyone is covered, that may be true at the macro level, but it damn well isn't true in the pages of my checkbook.

Why can't we sell healthcare reform based on the ways it helps the vast majority of people - people with insurance that is too expensive and out-of-pocket costs that could easily bankrupt them, given one major illness?

Biden said we'll have a bill by Thanksgiving, so there's still time to do this right. Why can't we dust off the Kennedy-Dingell bill that offers a buy-in to Medicare for everyone? It was written by Kennedy - that's worthy 50 senate votes all by itself, and the House would pass it without even reading it. A Medicare for All bill offers numerous advantages practical and political. In fact, it's virtually unbeatable. Those who oppose it need only be asked, why do you hate Medicare?

So if Obama must have a healthcare bill to sign, why not offer one that is virtually assured of passing both houses? Why go through this political kabuki? The solution to this should be simple. It is simple.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_netanyahu_mystery

Inquiring minds want to know.

Seeing the teabagger response to the healthcare debate and the president's speech to school children, I am reminded of the witch scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The teabaggers are the villagers, so intent on acheiving their orgasm of rage that they will dress up an innocent woman as a witch just so they can burn her.

 

Bedevere: But how do you *know* she is a witch?
Villager: She looks like one!
Other Villagers: Yeah!  She looks like one!!!

The media are the clueless yet deeply serious Sir Bedevere, who set about to teach the idiot villagers how to use reason instead of emotion to scientifically prove the woman they want to burn is a witch.

 

Bedevere: So.  Why do witches burn? 
Villager: (tentatively) Because they're made of.....wood?
Bedevere: Goooood!

 

And unfortunately, Obama is Sir Arthur, who watches it all, absorbs a bit of fawning praise, then hires Sir Bedevere to advise him.

 

Bring out yer dead!

If the Democrats cave on the public option, or pass a rusty, froze-up, triggered public option with mandates and half-assed subsidies (that the Republican party will chip away at from now to kingdom come), how will the Obama administration spin the results to try to make this utter cave, this spineless, glass-jawed capitulation, look and feel and taste like a victory rather than the prearranged dive it will and has always been planned to be? Like tailless dogs chasing their tails.

It will be a victory for their real constituency - the insurance companies. It won't be a victory for thee and me. But apparently they've bought into one GOP tactic - marketing. The people will believe what they are told to believe. Until, of course, they're told they have to spend money they don't have to buy insurance that won't cover them, just so Obama can climb on top of the pile and smile and claim he has achieved what he set out to do. Way to Go, Team O!

You may ask yourself, is this my beautiful president? Was the match fixed? Will they throw the game?

Or you may say, something is better than nothing. We can build on this in the future. Fine and dandy, but why should we trust these liars and deceivers, these fawning toadies, these giddy suckups to the monied interests to build on anything when they have shown their complete unwillingness to even pick up a hammer? And what if the ultimate result is so galling, so packed with giveaways, that it eternally poisons the well of reform so that nothing can possibly be built from here and in a few years we end up having to chuck the whole thing? What if it is so fangless (not unlike the foreclosure bill) that it will have so little impact on the lives of everyday people that the next Republican administration can shrink it down and drown it in the bathtub? .

Are these the compromises we are willing to make, just so we can throw up our hands (and our lunches) and claim a victory, some victory, any victory, no matter how meaningless? Isn't this like the coach of the second-tier football team who claims, after beating a fourth-tier team of perennial losers, that they can build on this pointless, masturbatory victory for their game next week against the BCS #1?

As for me and my house, we do not cheer for teams who thump their chests after every pedestrian tackle and two-yard run up the middle. Reform without a public option isn't reform - it's a cover for the transfer of the last pfennigs and farthings of the public treasury into the bottomless pockets of the health insurance industry. That is all it is and all it was ever intended to be.

Hoo-fuggin-ray.

 

Write your own future headlines:

Michael Steele Says GOP Full of Racists, OK by Him

Sen. Grassley Calls for Hold on HC Reform, Can't Explain Why

Holder Hints at Expanding Investigation, Cheney Announces Move to Dubai

 

Today, Josh led a post with "Cue the Black Helicopters" as a catch-all reference to crazy conspiracy theory.

Yet followed it with a post that quotes the Times saying:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda...

What do you think those Blackwater contractors working for top secret CIA assassin squads rode around in?

Black helicopters, maaaannnnnn!

The scene is Mr. Huph's office at Insuricare. Bob Parr, aka Mr. Incredible, is being reprimanded because his customers have the uncanny ability to navigate the bureaucracy that exists to deny them coverage.

Bob: Are you saying we shouldn't help our customers?

Mr. Huph: The law requires that I answer no.

Bob: We're supposed to help people.

Mr. Huph: We're supposed to help OUR people, starting with our stockholders, Bob. Who's helping them out, huh?

Insurance exists for one purpose - to make money, and insurance can't make money if it pays out more in claims than it receives in revenue. Therefore insurance companies create structures and policies to limit their liabilities by denying coverage.

It doesn't matter what kind of insurance we're talking about. They all operate in the same manner. I've written about health insurance many times, but this summer I have had a similar experience with my home warranty company.

In early May, my air conditioner began to leak water. I called my warranty company and they sent out a repairman, who failed to correctly diagnose the problem. A second one came out and found the problem but didn't have the authorization to repair it. Another two visits were required before authorization was given to replace the evaporator coil. The repairmen damaged the first evaporator coil installing it, requiring a second coil to replace the first one. Then they failed to properly charge it with coolant, requiring yet another visit. In all, we had no air conditioning for 22 days in May and June.

The air conditioner still isn't working right. It runs all day to maintain a temperature of 80 degrees, when it is only 90 degrees outside. What is more, my electricity usage has almost doubled since the repair. I called them out again yesterday and they informed me that there is nothing more they can do, because the warranty company will only replace the defective equipment. If, because of changes in technology, the new equipment requires extra equipment (in the form of valves or electronics) to make it work efficiently with the old equipment, I will have to pay for those modifications. As long as the system no longer leaks water and is blowing out some cool air, their responsibilities have been met.

The home warranty company, like Mr. Huph's health insurance company, is in the business of denying coverage for any reason allowable by law. They all work this way, so there is no free market pressure to provide better coverage. And that is why the entire insurance industry doesn't, cannot, and never will work except as a massive profit engine for their stockholders.   

Made ya look!

No, I'm not talking about replacing the progressive income tax. What I'd like to address today is how to pay for healthcare for everyone.

In a perfect world, the simplest solution would be to just scale up Medicare to cover everybody. Why this wasn't the goal from the very beginning is only apparent when you realize that the debate is being driven not by the needs of the many but the greed of the few. It doesn't take a long, complicated argument to explain this.

All you need to do is ask, "How much is your health insurance?" I'll use me as an example, since my family is solidly middle class, national median income, two children, two jobs, two cars, two cats, and a mortgage. Our health insurance comes through my wife's employer and costs us roughly 15% of our combined gross income. Add to that the cost of copays, deductibles and co-insurance and you're getting closer to 18% of gross income. We get our insurance from my wife's employer because my employer charges 25% of gross income (not including copays and deductibles) for the same level of coverage.

That 18% is like a tax. A healthcare tax charged by a for-profit company. And it's 18% because not everybody is covered and not everybody pays into the system. But mostly because it's a for-profit system.

If we had Medicare for All, not only would that simple message be easy to communicate to the masses and easy to understand, it would be easy to pay for with a simple flat income tax with no income limits. More than likely, the tax would be significantly less that what the average American currently pays in health insurance premiums, deductibles, copays. How hard is that to explain?

The whole problem with this debate is caused by the need to keep the current employer-provided health insurance system intact, while also attempting to provide coverage for everyone else. This introduces confusing levels of complexity, complexity that leads to misunderstandings, complexity that leaves the issue vulnerable to misinformation, propaganda and damned lies. In other words, fear. Fear of losing coverage. Fear of the other. Fear of the unknown.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - H.P. Lovecraft

The current hodgepodge of proposals and counterproposals has created the environment of fear that could lead to a poor bill or even total defeat. That is, after all, why there's been a hodgepodge of proposals and counterproposals.

Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion. - Sun Tzu

A simple, effective message would resolve everything. But a simple, effective message requires a simple, effective healthcare solution.

That solution, and its message, are one in the same:

Medicare for everybody, paid for with a flat tax on income, cheaper than what you're paying now.

 

My last three visits to doctors have provided me with three prime examples of how health insurance has utterly screwed up the way we receive health care in this country.

Example 1: After seven years, I finally went to see an optometrist for a new pair of glasses. At the doctor's office, they were astounded that I don't have insurance. I don't have insurance because it's too expensive where I work and my wife's insurance only covers her, plus it's been seven years since I needed a new pair of glasses.

The problem is, their prices are set with the assumption that everybody who walks through the door will have insurance. A person in my situation simply can't afford their services, so they offer what they call their "nice guy discount." In other words, I pay what they usually charge for the negotiated price through insurance. In other words, they artificially inflate their prices so they can they can then negotiate them down to actual retail price, much like car salesmen.

 

Example 2: I have known for some years that I have obstructive sleep apnea. The sleep clinic consisted of three visits - initial consultation, initial overnight observation, follow-up observation with CPAP. Total billed price - almost $1,800. Total negotiated insurance price that I have to pay (because I have yet to meet my deductible) - almost $400. Once again, the sleep clinic prices are artificially inflated to an outrageous amount, just so they can be negotiated down to a retail level.

 

Example 3: The sleep physician wrote a prescription for CPAP equipment and sent it to a local medical equipment provider. Just so I would know whether their prices were reasonable, I looked up the equipment at several online medical equipment companies. The final, insurance-negotiated price for the CPAP machine, mask, hose and headgear cost the same or more than the same equipment purchased online, at retail prices with no insurance. Again, the prices at the local provider were artificially inflated with the expectation of the patient having insurance and thus paying a lower, negotiated amount.

 

Conclusion: Insurance provided no financial advantage whatsoever in any of these three examples. Were there no health insurance at all, the actual costs of medical care would be roughly the same as most people's current insurance-adjusted out-of-pocket expenses. The very nature of the market dictates this. If there were no insurance, no doctor in the world could afford to charge $300 per visit, because the vast majority of the patient base could not afford to pay it, and the doctor charging $50 per visit would have an overflowing waiting room. The optometrist was perfectly willing to give me the insurance-adjusted prices, even though I had no insurance, just to retain me as a patient.

Healthcare expenses are artificially inflated to compensate for the expected negotiated adjustment with the insurance companies. And at the end of the day, we're paying the insurance companies a ton of money to provide a price adjustment that would occur naturally in a true free market of healthcare options. Insurance creates the problem it is meant to address, namely, the high cost of medical care, while at the same time pricing medical care out of the range of those who cannot afford insurance, thereby necessitating the service they provide.

Don't think for a moment that this is a happy accident on the part of the insurance companies. If you've ever been in a car accident, you may have noticed that if you actually built a car out of replacement parts, it would costs you double or triple the actual cost of the car. That's because we have auto insurance to pay for our accident repairs, therefore the cost of accident damage repair is significantly greater than the cost of buying a car. If there were no insurance, the cost of parts and repairs would reflect what the retail repair market could actually bear. But since we do have insurance, the high cost of repair neccessitates that you carry insurance. Insurance creates the problem it is meant to address.

Because healthcare and insurance are both for-profit industries, they create a feedback loop that forever drives up costs. Insurance companies fight for bigger discounts in order to keep more of their premiums. Doctors react by artificially raising their prices so they can give bigger discount percentages while simultaneously making more profit for themselves. Insurance companies react by raising premiums and cutting service. Because both are trying to feed the same profit beast, we end up with a compounding of natural inflationary pressures, thus driving healthcare costs higher, which in turn pushes overall inflation higher, which necessitates higher premiums and medical costs, etc.

Mandating insurance isn't the solution. For-profit insurance creates the problem it is meant to address. Making insurance obsolete by providing health care for everyone is the only way to control healthcare costs and bring them in line with natural levels of inflation.

I heard a new one last night - that if Congress passes this healthcare bill, it will get rid of Medicare and old people will lose their insurance.

Where do people hear this nonsense?

Me - That's a lie.

Them - That's just your opinion.

Me - This is not my opinion, it's the truth. They're not getting rid of Medicare. Whoever told you that is lying to you.

Them - Why would they do that?

Me - *deep sigh*

That's how David Kurtz describes Ensign's letter to his mistress and wife of his BFF.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't describe it as painfully awkward. He still isn't taking responsibility for what he has done. He's saying, see, what I did was wrong but I am trying to get right with God so you should forgive me, too.

Why does he think sexual desire is nothing more than a desire for pleasure, to "feel good," as he puts it? Because to a sociopath that is the only way he knows to describe sex. To a sociopath, it's not about a spiritual connection with another person, because they don't care about other people. It's not about that deep passion that overwhelms your logical faculties and drives you to make stupid decisions. If if were only about pleasure, if it were only about feeling good, you could get along just fine with masturbation.

To a sociopath, sex is about pleasure and power. Pleasure derived from the exercise of power over another human being. There is no power in masturbation, therefore there is no pleasure in it, therefore they seek out sexual partners to dominate so they can experience the all-important pleasure centers that drives their behavior.

Religion is often a refuge for the sociopath, allowing him a socially-acceptable bearer for the burden of sins over which he personally feels no remorse but knows that society demands his remorse. With the forgiveness of God, he can quickly put on a happy face and wait for his weaker companions to share in God's forgiveness. This shows through brilliantly in Ensign's letter. Do you really think he is talking to his lover in this language of God's forgiveness? No, this is a message written to those who could take away his power by taking away his social prestige by exposing the scandal. This private letter is very much for public consumption. He is saying, keep this quiet, for God's sake!

No, it's not painfully awkward. It's deliberately manipulative.

... we would have one political party and everbody would work together.

 

 

Since everybody else is paying tribute, I might as well chime in.

I loved Michael Jackson - when I was seven, and he was with the Jackson 5. But ultimately, I needed music with a bit more backbone and soul, so I moved on to Elton John and never looked back.

When Thriller came out, I lived too far out in BFE to get cable, but I saw it in the common room at the dorm one day and I remember being completely blown away, thinking, Jesus that was fucking stupid. This is what the media and the world is creaming its pants over? We're doomed.

Turns out I was right.

John Bonham, why did you have to die?