What I Want in Healthcare Reform
I don't know about you, but I am pulling my hair out at the absolute insanity in the politics of the healthcare "debate." I want a 'single payer" system that provides UNIVERSAL healthcare. I do not want a system that tweeks the edges so cover a FEW more people. As I see it there are three components to the healthcare issue:
1. Healthcare is not accessible to a growing portion of the population.
2. Healthcare in the United States is the most expensive in the world.
3. Costs (and profits) are out of control.
We have gone from a discussion of UNIVERSAL healthcare, to single-payer health care, to no "public option." This shift is not just ominous - it is wrong. Further, the discussion of the "costs" of providing public healthcare has become a major debating point. It is a point I do not understand.
Theoretically, a universal, single payer system should be considerably LESS expensive - even if nothing else changed. Why? Because in insurance terms, the larger the "pool," the less the "risk" and therefore the less the "cost." This makes certain "conservative" plans non-starters for dealing with the issues with our healthcare system. Why? because they shrink or constrain the "pool."
An apparent compromise position is to establish health insurance "cooperatives." This, at best, would create multiple pools with fewer insured and therefore have limited effect at decreasing costs.
Another compromise is to do a "public option" that extends Medicare/Medicaid to part of the uninsured population - the SCHIP program for children (for example).
If one creates a plan where a significant portion of the population can totally opt-out of, then you undermine pool, increase cost, and decrease income.
There is no good compromise position that I can see if we are going to address both access and cost issues. We either have a universal system that everyone pays into (including employers), or we fill the pockets of private insurers while increasing the public costs of healthcare.
The second part of the problem is that healthcare provision is private. We have virtually no public healthcare system. Therefore, if we do not start the creation of a public healthcare system, and place controls on private healthcare (and pharmaceuticals), then even if we have a public insurance system, it will potentially bankrupt us on the provision end. This was the problem with the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan which barred any efforts to negotiate drug costs.
If we need public insurance to create price competition with private insurance, then we also need public healthcare to compete with private healthcare. This is not to mention that the efforts of private medicine are already heavily subsidised by public dollars (drug, therapy, and treatment research) which is turned over gratis to the for-profit sector.
One bogus argument on the provision side is that medical malpractice suits drive the cost of healthcare provision. This is patently not true. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no positive impact on costs of either insurance or care provision in those states that have enacted malpractice limits. Further, this is a public check on healthcare facilities and providers. Does this mean that there are not bogus or misdirected suits? No, it does not. However, it provides accountability in an arena where the individual is the underdog - not the providers or insurers.
What has successfully been allowed to happen in the United States is to make healthcare a commodity which is kept artificially short. This combination grows higher and higher costs. To fix the problem, we must make healthcare a right - not a commodity - and decrease the scarcity.
One place to start the prototypes of public healthcare provision would be in rural America. For all the access problems in urban areas, rural areas have a growing crisis. Public facilities with publicly paid practitioners could be easily instituted in rural areas. If the model works there, it can (and should) be expanded to urban areas.
The short version of all of this is that healthcare reform should dramatically reduce healthcare costs and SAVE us money - not cost us more. If the projection is that a plan will cost us more money, then we can rest assured that private industry is getting its pockets lined at public expense, and that the system created is not truly serving the needs of the people.
I figure, as the repubs do, that once the 'public option' is there, the foot will be in the door.
Wishful thinking.I do not think so. I think the repubs are afraid. We shall see how this works out.
The polls change daily because the polling questions change. The damn repubs along with the insurance cos and drug cos pay the polling cos to twist the question, spin it. In order to get the answer they desire.
But I think these emails, these .org organizations, they are having an effect. The dem pols are getting scared.
LET US PRAY
June 27, 2009 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kneeling with you and crossing self (tho I'm a non-believer I hedge my bets), we had better pray very hard. The changing rhetoric is leading people down a path of bilking the public - again.
June 27, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, legislators are working tirelessly to guarantee
the long term survival rate of the most shameless health care system in modern civilization.
Why?
Greed gone wild.
Capitalism is supposed to be an economic system in which trade and industry are privately owned, independent of government. It has grown into a system in which government is privately owned by industry.
Essentially, capitalism has a chokehold on our democracy.
But industry that doesn't change, that isn't forced to innovate because of competition, will eventually die. Our automobile industry is a perfect example of that.
I wish people would talk about this in human costs, as I believe you do, Rowan.
But it is also a matter of helping our economy thrive.
Just as we need alternatives to the traditional fossil fuels industry in order to be competitive worldwide(and of course, breathe clean air), we need smarter alternatives to compete with the monopoly of for profit health care.
June 27, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
tpmgary, people are dying and have died and a lot more are going to. Several years ago, due to state budget cuts, a young man was denied a medication which would have saved his life, but was no longer covered by Oregon Health Plan. He went into massive seizures and then into a coma. THIS, the healthplan would cover. They put him in critical care. Spent hundreds of thousands to try to bring him back. He died - for lack of a $100 prescription. It was needless. It was criminal. It is the system that we have and why it must change.
Of course, there is the threat that no one talks about - a massive infection crisis. You see, because of lack of access to health care and NO public healthcare system,the entire population is at risk. When an epidemic starts (it is not if, but when) then it will likely hit those with the least resources first and hardest. By the time that gets to the level of realizing what we have to deal with, it will be way too late. Any attempt at dealing with the illness - or containing it - will be gone.
People have downplayed the "Swine" flu. However, watch it spread - largely out of control (and out of the flu season). The more it spreads, the more likely it hits upon a virulent combination. Virologists are holding their breath for the next flu season. However, we are unlikely to catch it early. This is what happens when you make a critical social resource increasingly scarce.
June 27, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"this is what happens when you make a critical social resource increasingly scarce."
I think this is especially poignant, Rowan.
Because medicine and health care is sold by private companies, what should be viewed as a social resource is deprived of its inherent humanity and peddled as a private commodity.
June 27, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan,
We have to understand that what we want and need is for some of the kings in healthcare of give up their kingdoms, lordships, etc. and from their perspective... why should they?
So, we do need and deserve a single payer system and the best version we can possibly create. The costs are basically playing a game because fewer and fewer people are going to be able to afford any healthcare let alone health insurance anyway. If nothing is done the situation will only deteriorate.
Clearly on this issue bi-partisanship is not worth the compromised system we would have to settle for.
This fight may well be long and tough like blacks or women getting the right to vote. We know it's the right thing... it's inevitable... we may have to fight for it, however.
June 27, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
> This fight may well be long and tough like blacks or women getting the right to vote. We know it's the right thing... it's inevitable... we may have to fight for it, however.
Stealing from the wealthy to give to the less wealthy is never the "right" thing to do.
> What we want and need ...
... Are two different things.
Considering how the Government has failed us with Social Security, failed us with Medicare/Medicaid, failed us with a war in Iraq, failed us on North Korea and Iran, failed us in Vietnam, failed us in funding huge bailouts for the likes of GM, Chrysler, and AIG, failed us in funding our economic collapse...
I will stick to preferring that government stay out of failing me in my own healthcare.
June 28, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's time for a progressive revolt.
June 27, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Synch,
I say "screw bi-partisanship"! Let's skip the politics and the "special interests." Let's deal with what is necessary for the people and for the nation. We likely will need to hit the streets and the phones on this one. People already are. But what we see is a morphing of the discussion and the compromises further and further away from what is needed and closer and closer to another massive give away.
June 27, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree Rowan... what I see lacking is leadership for the people. We need someone to lead the fight. Someone that the organizations and people can trust and rally around to help us be more organized and have a more unified and powerful voice in speaking to WA. It may take more time and pain and suffering before that leader emerges. But if you've got some ideas I would start writing to them, calling them now. I wrote to President Obama and asked him to run for president as I am sure many people did. If there is someone out there taking a stand for single payer that we could all accept as a leader we need to nominate them and let them know.
June 28, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our senators are not in the least bit afraid of us. They know that with the money they will get from the health care industry employees, they can advertise themselves back into office with no problems at all. Basically all they have to do is keep their mistresses, etc. all secret, and they have a lifetime job, with lucrative lobbying jobs after that, if they wish.
So, we need to make them fear us.
As I have said numerous times, one very effective way is a general strike. Such a strike impacts industry profits, and nothing but profits is sacred to businessmen. Organizing such a general strike is an almost impossible task in a country such as ours, where if it isn't a TV reality show, 2/3rds of the population knows nothing about it. Somehow we have to change that.
June 27, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
A general strike - now that's an idea. Maybe we could set up a list of demands, and on the appointed day people could go to the busiest intersection or highway and just sit down and stop everything. Police can't be everywhere.
June 27, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or we could encourage one health insurance company to get creative.
One health insurance company could announce that it will stop all rescission practices(except in cases of blatant pre-meditated fraud), promise to provide insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, expand their network to include your current doctor or hospital or pharmacy, expand their prescription formulary and announce the first freeze on premium hikes ever.
Now imagine if 20 million people cancelled their policies with the other health insurance companies all on the same day and joined this one.
Make it 50 million people.
It would take a lot of organization but it can be done.
Now it won't solve the entire problem, there would still be millions uninsured but it does signal that Americans are a force to be reckoned with.
What do you think?
June 27, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that insurance company would soon raise their rates, start refusing to cover certain risky people, and reject even more treatments as not being approved by their CFO. This would cause several other insurance companies to step back into the market. Net result - higher insurance cost.
No plan that includes insurance companies making profits is going to work. The sooner we accept that the sooner we can move forward.
June 27, 2009 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
why would they do that? If they have 20 million new customers, and leverage to reduce costs, aren't they just as profitable?
June 27, 2009 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Corporations always seek to increase their profits. They will never reduce the cost to the consumer, when that consumer has no choice but to pay whatever the asking price is. As one corporation gains an ever larger share of the market, they never reduce prices - they increase them. Why would health care insurance companies act any differently? Because of their innate morality? Sorry, I can barely type for laughing at that idea.
June 28, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good, better to make someone laugh than make them cry:)
I don't mind suggesting ideas. I admit I can be as naive as anyone.
June 28, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This happens only when a company has a monopoly. Competition reduces prices; is it fair to say that companies only seek a profit and to neglect the fact that to make a profit you must provide a better service than your competition for a lower cost?
Lets see, who would have a monopoly under the proposed program? Oh, that's right: The government.
June 28, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The medical insurance companies have a de-facto monopoly, because they collude on setting their rates. Just try to get a Medicare Advantage policy that is the least expensive. Your choice is among companies that use different payment schemes, some covering some drugs, others covering other drugs, some covering some procedures, others covering other procedures. I'm only aware of this because a family member sells those policies and keeps me abreast of what goes on in that industry.
We now have the worst type of health insurance system - one with the government preventing real competition, and with the insurance companies dividing up the customers without even bothering to compete for them with real price differences.
Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry arranged for Medicare Part D to be set up so they can charge not less but more for their drugs. And, the government is prohibited from ever attempting to force drug prices down. Then to add insult and more injury, the drug companies waste about a third of their funds advertising prescription drugs to consumers who can't buy them directly.
Frankly, there is nothing about our national health care system that is admirable.
June 28, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
> The medical insurance companies have a de-facto monopoly, because they collude on setting their rates. Just try to get a Medicare Advantage policy that is the least expensive.
Right. Medicare advantage. Government supplied monopoly.
> We now have the worst type of health insurance system - one with the government preventing real competition, and with the insurance companies dividing up the customers without even bothering to compete for them with real price differences.
My sentiments exactly. Any time government interferes with any private sector activity, you can guarantee that the government will reduce the effectiveness of said activity.
> Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry arranged for Medicare Part D to be set up so they can charge not less but more for their drugs.
Go figure, more government interfering with the free market. If we didn't have Medicare, this wouldn't be an issue.
> nd, the government is prohibited from ever attempting to force drug prices down.
Yup. Exactly what will happen under "Single Payer."
> Then to add insult and more injury, the drug companies waste about a third of their funds advertising prescription drugs to consumers who can't buy them directly.
I completely agree. I don't think any drugs should be illegal or "By prescription only." I am not advocating self-medication; I'm simply defending your right to do what you want with your own body as long as it doesn't interfere with my rights to liberty and belongings.
Perhaps if we legalized drugs, there'd be less of a demand for doctors that were only seen to prescribe said drugs for chronic conditions, therefore lowering the demand and hence costs of medical care. Seriously; why do I need a prescription for an infection that a 6 year old could diagnose? Why should I need a prescription for a painkiller when I know that I'm in pain? It's all a scam to drive up demand and costs, supported, funded and regulated by Big Government. This doesn't even get into the waste created by monitoring and controlling substances. We're paying on both ends; as the taxpayer and as the consumer.
In short, government intervention has gotten us *into* the healthcare mess (pretty much like all problems). Do we really want to see how far down the rabbit hole goes by giving them even more power over our lives?
June 28, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They will never reduce the cost to the consumer, when that consumer has no choice but to pay whatever the asking price is."
On the other hand, we are the only consumers these companies have to choose from. They can't export private insurance to countries with universal health care.
So if we exercise our demands, the power is in our hands.
It just hasn't reached a tipping point yet. Social pressure works.
June 28, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
20M new customers that are the castoffs of the other insurers with the highest needs/costs in the system.
June 28, 2009 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Which is one of the problems with the 'public option' as opposed to single payer.
June 28, 2009 2:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure you're right about this, Miguel -- many uninsured are healthy people like my daughter who just can't afford the premiums. That is why whatever they do has to have a mandate so that the young and healthy will be a part of the pool, and what they contribute will lower the cost for all.
But here I go again, describing single-payer, like it was a no-brainer or something!
June 28, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
This:
"No plan that includes insurance companies making profits is going to work."
is absolutely correct and this is the key to the whole debate! it is the reason the insurance companies and politicians are fighting so hard against us. This debate is NOT about health care at all, it is about insurance company profits!
June 28, 2009 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it wrong to make a profit when you're providing not just a service, but a service involving your most scarce commodity: Your own life?
I *hope* the doctor working on me is making a profit to pay off his medical bills, malpractice insurance, and to get the best equipment available to make every surgery I undergo that much simpler, quicker and safer. The faster he can repay these debts, the less stress he has in his own life and the more he can concentrate on doing a good job.
If I were forced to slavery in my profession, I'd find another profession. We already have a national nursing issue, why would we even attempt to make it worse?
Oh, on those 47 million uninsured: When you discount the people that either don't want health insurance or are here illegally, or are too young to really need it, it's really only about 10 million people uninsured.
June 28, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get a grip! Insurance company profits have NOTHING AT ALL to do with what your doctor makes! People want HEALTH CARE not insurance.
June 28, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought this argument was about providing healthcare insurance to all Americans.
Profits have *everything* to do with how much doctors get paid.
Just because you want a toy really badly does not mean you are entitled to steal that toy.
June 28, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
CMN, thanks for your thoughts, but I beg to differ.
Doctors in France, Canada, Britain and elsewhere do not see themselves as "slaves" or even paupered.
I have heard complaints from doctors working under various plans complain about the limitations on their discretion; the expectation that they will spend no more than 5 minutes per patient; being discouraged to refer patients to specialists. In other words, strong controls on their ability to practice medicine.
I am not sure who is too young to need insurance. I remember my own childhood with one stomach pump, several trips for stitches, a tonsellectomy, seemingly endless doctor's visits for massive ear infections. My neice's son has also probably had over 60 visits to doctors in his short 4 years - includes checkups, vaccinations, and health issues (ears, flu, high fevers, etc.). These are COMMON things.
Now those people you say voluntarily eschew health insurance. Do they really? Or do they say, I can't afford health insurance and other things take priority? What about those who opt for "risk" insurance only?
Now how about those who do get "insurance." How many of them have dental insurance? A lot don't and we don't talk about it.
Doctors are not driving health care - and by and large are not raking in the competitive dollars from it. Do you go to the BEST doctor? Or do you go to the best doctor who is ON YOUR PLAN? Could you pay for the "best" care out of your own pocket? I certainly couldn't and I imagine that 95% of American's can't.
June 28, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, let me start by saying that I do agree that we need reform; in our haste to reform a system though, lets get the right kind of reform.
As I've pointed out earlier, Government has failed us in almost every part of the private sector it wrenches from our hands. In light of this fact, I am highly skeptical of Big Brother getting its hands on any industry any more than it already has; All it has served to do is create monopolies for Big Oil and stifle competition across the board. The same will happen to healthcare, whether it's immediately or 20 years into the future.
> I am not sure who is too young to need insurance. I remember my own childhood with one stomach pump, several trips for stitches, a tonsellectomy, seemingly endless doctor's visits for massive ear infections. My neice's son has also probably had over 60 visits to doctors in his short 4 years - includes checkups, vaccinations, and health issues (ears, flu, high fevers, etc.). These are COMMON things.
By too young, I mean people that are in high school or college and who could benefit better from investing their money in a health savings account, so that instead of spending their money they are growing their money until it's needed. As you stated, these are common issues, and are relatively inexpensive. Children such as your neice's son are already covered through SCHIP and Medicare, which also needs reform, but we can tackle that at a later date.
> Now how about those who do get "insurance." How many of them have dental insurance? A lot don't and we don't talk about it.
Dental insurance costs me $12/month through MetLife. I'm not sure who can't afford Dental insurance, but I don't think it's a big enough issue requiring reform on this subject.
> Doctors are not driving health care - and by and large are not raking in the competitive dollars from it. Do you go to the BEST doctor? Or do you go to the best doctor who is ON YOUR PLAN? Could you pay for the "best" care out of your own pocket? I certainly couldn't and I imagine that 95% of American's can't.
This leads back to the argument that the top 5% should pay for everyone's medical care. How can you support armed robbery of those that have done well for themselves and amassed a large amount of wealth?
I can not and will not support the armed robbery the government commits every day for wasteful programs that provide substandard services. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor; you're still being forcefully removed from your property and belongings for the sole benefit of redistribution of wealth. Sacrificing your life voluntarily is noble; when government removes your life from you it is evil.
June 28, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"government has failed us in almost every part of the private sector it wrenches from our hands"
Would you agree that the private sector has failed us as well?
Also, who do you think has had more control over the last two decades, the private sector or the government?
Or do you see it as one mammoth combined private enterprise?
June 28, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Government has provided the conditions for the failures to take place. Take a look at Fannie and Freddie. The government guarantees loans that private corporations made; how did anyone think this could possibly have wound up well? Taxpayer money to line corporations' pockets? Zero liability provides an infinite risk:reward ratio.
It is not the free market that causes economic ruin, it is government interference with how a free market operates. I'm not saying the government shouldn't police the free market, but that simply it should not create a zero liability situation for any corporation, and that includes bailing out corporations that are failing or have failed.
If we truly want a free society, we must stop the government corruption and bureaucracy that is plaguing our nation. The federal government needs to be re-confined to its constitutional role of protecting and serving its constituents, not dictating and directing them.
June 28, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
how do you think the government got so corrupt? I think you're making a distinction between government and industry that in many ways doesn't exist.
The free market got so free that it bought our democracy and now runs the government.
And the government has itself become a private enterprise--look at the defense industry, the oil and gas industry, the banking industry
Industry can't regulate itself and government doesn't enforce regulation. It seems to only enforce deregulation.
I don't have any answers, really.
June 28, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
> And the government has itself become a private enterprise--look at the defense industry, the oil and gas industry, the banking industry
Exactly why the government should not have control over these sectors.
I've said previously, EVERY SECTOR the government touches becomes corrupt, inefficient, and useless.
There's no reason as to why any future control you give the government over any other enterprise will not be exactly the same outcome.
Attempting to fix failures by more regulation will never work, and infitely expand the government.
June 29, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The unfortunate thing about non-violent acts is that they are only effective when the government resorts to either violence or other vastly overdone retaliations. To make it work, those participating have to not only be ready to be arrested and incarcerated, they have to insist on it. It takes TV coverage of huge numbers of people being rather crudely taken away to jail, large numbers having to be incarcerated in foot ball stadiums to accommodate the crowd, and scenes of police brutality in general to finally arouse the public. You would really have to be committed to "the cause" to do that.
Just stopping traffic for an hour only enrages people not participating who are late to work and other appointments, and the TV scenes act to nudge people against us, not for us. It has to be the government that is clearly shown to be in the wrong, not the demonstrators.
June 27, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I agree that a corporation stepping forward is only an interim "solution" - not to mention a tried and true process of driving out the competition - I think there may be far more ticked off people that we think. Almost 2/3 of people want significant reform and a "public option." That is a huge number of folks who Washington is not listening to. That is a huge number of people be ticked off. Why would we assume that inconvenienced motorists might not join a stoppage? Particularly if they are also ticked off about loss of jobs, loss of homes, the bailout of big finance, and on and on. There is a great anger in this country that seems to be growing. For decades, Washington has ignored the people and pandered to the corporate elite. They may find they have underestimated just how ticked off people are.
June 28, 2009 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I, too, find it absolutely repugnant the way in which this "health care reform" discussion has devolved into a "health insurance industry protection" effort.
Whenever I hear insurance company executives whining that the public option is untenable because it will make it impossible for them to compete, I cannot help wonder "And so your point is what, exactly?"
The fact that Obama and everyone else has established the profitability of the health insurance industry parasites as perhaps the number one priority says alot about our need for campaign finance reform - and explains why we will probably never get anything like reasonable health care for anyone other than our bought-and-sold Congressional Representatives.
Truly, have they no shame whatsoever?
June 28, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi SJ. I think that shame is clearly something that has been lost in the dusty garments of corruption.
June 28, 2009 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
RW,
Agree! The Soule Eating Bastard Industry (aka: the health insurance industry) needs something... anything to keep them honest, they sure aren't now.
I still believe that Post Claim Underwriting (please google it) is the best argument for, at the vary least, "the public option" and better yet the "SPUHC" "Single Payer Universal Health Care".
My doctor has told me that tort reform has made NO difference in the insurance rate he pays. So you have another branch of the insurance tree scamming us all.
As Kasey Kasem might say... It is ponderous, absolutely fucking ponderous! )If you are not aware of the Kasey Kasem reference PLEASE google Kasey Kasem meltdown, it is a national treasure)
June 28, 2009 4:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Face, righteous rage!
Here is an informative link on Post Claim Underwriting
The short version is that a company gives you insurance and you pay for it until you file a claim. Then they deny the claim (and the insurance) saying that there were conditions that rescind the insurance.
June 28, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that the real reason Republicans are resisting this and will continue to resist no matter what, is for the same reason they resisted in 1993: the fear that they will remain in the minority permanently or for a very long time if universal health care is passed. PBS did a show on the book, The System, that captured the process back then:
So forget the Republicans. They like power and majority status too much to worry about the uninsured. I wonder though, if big business might not be our best hope. They have been agitating for government intervention in the health care debacle, but quietly in order to keep Republicans happy about other things biz needs. But if we could somehow convince Coke, IBM, Microsoft, etc., that life really will be better for them under some type of universal care, they may overcome their squeamishness. At that point, with biz on our side, the bill doesn't have to be bipartisan anymore, IMHO. But I'm not absolutely sure of that either.
But at least it's outside the box. What do you all think? [Hi Rowan!]
June 28, 2009 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
My concern there is that we have a Democratic Party (forget the Republican Pary - they aren't our problem) that has absolutely zip, zero, no commitment whatever to universal healthCARE. They are in love with insurance scams and shell games and tricks and spin and talking points but CARE, not so much.
So, I don't believe it would be that hard to get corporate America to become complicit in this big, fat, insurance scam. They'll just see the big insurance scam as an excuse to drop employer paid healthcare leaving us with a healthREFORM bill that does for health what welfare reform did for the poor. Sure, you may coerce a few people who can afford it to buy it, but what you are more likely to do is leave the truly vulnerable in the gutter - unable to buy the insurance and denied care because of the LIE that insurance is available and affordable.
Bureaucracies work to achieve the goal and the goal here has never been universal healthCARE. The goal is to paper over our healthCARE problems with a big bloated bag of tricks.
June 28, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here here Bluebell!! Well said.
June 28, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, you are more than just correct. Dealing with the repubs as a group is a waste of frickin time.
June 28, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seashell, thanks for sharing the quote and the link. What jumps out at me is:
The Republicans have been remarkably good at getting the middle class to vote against their own best interests. This is part of the ongoing mantra about "big" government. It is interesting that health care is seen as a propagandistic wedge issue.
June 28, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I AM SO ANGRY I AM SCREAMING!!
That shill Carville is out there saying that the Republicans are going to make Democrats tax health benefits so the Democrats are going give in and tax health benefits because Daddy Grassley is making them do it.
What a bunch of miserable lying scumbag cowards. The Republicans are not forcing Democrats to do or not do anything.
I don't know what the Democrats are doing here. I think they have lost their collective minds. They are about to dump on us a bill that taxes the benefits we have now and risks us losing them altogether while they refuse to provide an authentic universal healthcare safety net. It's the very worst of both worlds. It's a plan that no one understands and promises to FIRST take something away from you but LAST make no promise, no commitment, no entitlement for you to ever receive healthCARE in return.
June 28, 2009 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is why I said that any plan that costs us more than the already bloated costs of the system are a LIE that is lining pockets and doing nothing for us.
In my opinion, the idea of taxing benefits is a way of maintaining the existing failed system while providing inadequate coverage to those who cannot afford the blood price of access to the system.
June 28, 2009 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, guys, this is great:
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/the-public-option-and-the-small-business-owner/
The video is 5:36 minutes and worth every second.
June 28, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks CVille,
I think that what he said was interesting, but also that no one was there to hear it (his nervousness about speaking to so many empty leather chairs.) In other words, even someone who is invited to testify before Congress can we given the "absent" treatment. "Yeah, rep of small business, come and talk to us, but we don't have to listen."
Gads!
June 28, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan for Prez!
(hope you are feeling better. Thanks for this blog.)
June 28, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks dear Bwak, but I don't think the climate of DC would be good for my emotional health.
(I'm working on feeling better. Thanks)
June 28, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here'a a few tidbits for you to ponder on.
Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill(1943)was an attempt to provide national health care tied to social security. What we got was a basic foundation - it's called Medicare. The repuglicans and the medical/insurance industrial complex succeeded in muddying up the water and turned the public against it. The same bu11$hit propaganda used to defeat it back then is being employed today. And the public still suffers with fools who are information intolerant and are quite happy and satisfied with being of the uninformed persuasion.
Truely, the cost of health care has risen faster than inflation and the average workers wages, especially in the last 8 years under Bu$h. Now I can see and agree that as medical costs increase, those increases must be passed on to the consumer of those services. However, there must be some mechanism is place that performs an oversight of the costs to perform services and the public's ability to pay for the service rendered. Both the increased costs of service and the public's ability to absorb those costs are issues not being directly addressed by the insurers, the medical establishment and both national and state governments. By the way, many don't realize it but state governments have a lot to do with insurers being locked into lucrative deals that fleece insuree's all in the name of maintaining a sufficient profit levels to provide medical insurance services to the state.
Now here's a gimme to the repuglicans. We could forgo a single payer plan as long as there's an impartial federal government agency, freed of political innuendos favoring a Party preference, that is responsible for upholding the public's interest to validate costs of medical services and drugs. They should have a mandate to demand full transparency for any and all requests for increased fees for services, procedures and drugs. This includes pre-existing and hereditary conditions, those over 50 years old, and other such medical issues that insurers have refused to cover in the past. In other words, the only involvement by the government would be to make the playing field level for both the public and business. Everyone has a right to get medical insurance regardless of their current health or past health issues that is affordable regardless of their income. And the only cost to the government would be to fund the new agency. The unfortunate side effect would be the medical/insurance industrial complex would lose their ability to pump money into campaign coffers to get favorable legislative access within Congress. There would definitely be some poorer Congress critters, but perhaps that's what needs to happen to get campaign costs back down into a lower Earth orbit.
This is nothing more than giving the repuglicans exactly what they're demanding, but substituting their proxy constituents, the medical/insurance industrial complex, for the constituents that put them in office in the first place - the public they are suppose to represent.
June 28, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
BJ, Thanks for the history perspective, and for the suggestion. Unfortunately, there no longer seems to be a citizen protective agency that does not become a fawning pawn of big money and political interests (EPA, FDA, DoJ to name a few).
June 28, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I was saying it with tongue-in-cheek knowing full well the repuglicans wouldn't dare try to strike at that tar-baby, but that's the type of compromise the Democrats need to shove at them. It gives them exactly what they demand, but in a way that gives throws their political balance to the wind.
However, I think there needs to be an impartial federal government agency regulating insurers in all state and territories where the public can go to to lodge complaints against insurers and question if good faith is being practice by the industry. And the agency has to have the mandate to enforce rules on the industry to keep them honest. No point in pushing this health care package through if there isn't any oversight by the government to protect the interest of the public.
June 28, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I certainly agree that such a hypothetical program would need to be national and accessible, and have teeth.
June 28, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note, that I said insurance company profits, not doctor or hospital profits. Doctors, of course, have to earn enough to pay off their medical school bills, their office expenses, etc., and a very weak argument can be made for hospitals making a profit, but none that I'm aware of for insurance companies making a profit off of peoples miseries.
Doctors chose their specialty by picking well paid specialties, not specialties in the highest demand. We have a major shortage of general practitioner MDs, and those are the lowest paid of the medical doctors. Why are they the lowest paid? Because the committees that set Medicare pay schedules are dominated by other specialists, who keep their own specialties the best paid. Never will I believe that MDs are in it for other than money. (That isn't a bad thing.)
June 28, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta fight for it. And your essay is a beauty. Let's all copy/paste/send it verbatim to every politician we can find online. Ya-hoo, they'll be flooded with reason!
June 28, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Strato. Honored by the suggestion, but I DO recommend everyone contact all the pols they can find!
June 28, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink