Health Care Reform Gearing Up - Page 3

But...but...THEY'RE CENTRISTS! And, that's not all, they're BI-PARTISAN!

Getting on the aforementioned “Blue Dogs” is missing the point, we’re at where we are today because of the Stimulus Package. A practically party line vote made with the expectation of results that were not met. So these conservative Democrats are sitting there with that vote on their record, deficit fears showing up in the polls, and attacks from their right.

Expecting them to continue to vote for unpopular bills, without compensation, is absurd.

I do not understand how anyone can point at a President who signed an executive order putting a halt to Bush Administration practices in Guantanamo on his first day in office and claim he's continuing Bush Administration practices in Guantanamo unless they're:

A. Bill Kristol, or

B. Stupid.

Try reading what he actually signed.

I'm aware of it. It was not Bush policy.

How's Bush's policy of rendition going?

How about his military tribunals?

The signing was to look into where to place the current detainee's, it wasn't to free them or give them proper legal proceedings. I'm sure there will end up being a barge in the middle of international waters dubbed "Gitmo too".

Which methods of torture has Obama okayed for use on your prisoners?

They aren't his. These are different ones, with standards of evidence that are not as much of a farce as they would have been under Bush. Competent military tribunals such as those mentioned in the Geneva Convention are fine. I've been calling for them ever since Bush's program of kidnap and torture began.

To claim Obama's policies are the same as Bush's is to point out that men have teeth and combs have teeth so men are combs. Obama didn't release pictures of prisoners being tortured by Americans because it would encourage retribution; this is reasonable. I disagree with it, but it's reasonable. Bush didn't have the pictures released because it would have proved his claims that the US does not torture were lies. Naturally, I disagreed with his most unreasonable policy (covering up torture vs. damage control in the aftermath of the Bush Administration) on the matter as well. Goes without saying, really. But they are not the same policy.

If Obama's and Bush's policies were identical, the torturescum on Fox wouldn't be whining and crying about whatever it is they're whining and crying about this week. They'd be arguing that whatever method of torture Obama had his pet lawyer deem okie-dokie wasn't really torture, same as they did when the scum Bush was having people tortured. They'd be cheering him on for following in Bush's footsteps.

Your claim is simply absurd. I won't give it another thought.

You seem to be of the belief that FOX News actually maintains a coherent ideology, nothing could be further from the truth. If Obama were merely Bush in blackface, they’d spontaneously turn into MSNBC—circa 2008.

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-vi...ate-insurance/

Obama's been out to kill private insurance from the get go, lying to the American public. At least, that is my interpretation from this potentially tainted source.

Whatever dude, whatever.

So? When has it ever been a bad thing to eliminate the middle man?

Could you explain to us why the private insurance industry should be left alone?

I'm shocked that the corporate backed lobby groups are busing shills to go wreak havoc in town halls, printed marching orders and actual scripts in hand, and it's working. Jesus wept.

Well, Obama doesn't actually say that, and those who do are in Congress. But fine, I can agree that if one were hoping to reduce the size of the private insurance market, this would be the most sensible and least economically hostile way to do it. Also, keep in mind that killing private insurance is not a goal but a means to reducing health care costs over the long term. So he's not exactly lying because he's not approaching this ideologically (although others in Congress might be). There is NO MANDATE to eliminate private insurers. The actual ideologues are those who are opposed to the public plan for no other reason than some vaguely stated fear of socialism. They are the ones who would rather be ideologically pure than actually solving a problem.

Well could it be that some people are against this plan because they think it's too expensive and doesn't really solve the problem (still leaves people uninsured).

My goal is that everybody has healthcare, and that even if we have private companies we get rid of pre-existing conditions, lifetime limits and other policies that can kill you.

We can't have people yelling "Communism" when these things get mentioned, but on the other hand we can't have people painting rosy pictures about this issue ... like how it works in other countries without mentioning possible shortcomings. That's what's unfortunate, one is suspicious of all the arguments coming from either side and responsible debate on this issue is drowned out.

ElCap, wherever profit can be made, there is no way to do any of the stuff you're talking about without fundamentally changing the market itself, and thinking any different is ridiculous. We don't live in a "decent" time. We live in a sick, diseased, greedy time. Where money is concerned, there are limitless resources to find loopholes and to screw people out of services to increase the bottom line for the shareholders and the CEO. These companies excel at that racket and no slap on the wrist is going to stop them. Why do you think they're fighting so dirty to kill a public option?

Any "compromise" that leaves out a strong, viable public option is doomed to failure. If the Dems blow this, they all deserve to be run out of town on a rail. Yes, the media and the fake "grassroots" "activists" controlled by big business slant the odds against any kind of reform, but if they can't get it done now, they can't get it done period.

I don't see why heavy regulation of private insurance companies is something that can't be done. Everybody will support it, they can make the argument that it'll make our insurance more expensive but I think a lot more regulation is the low hanging fruit.

That still leaves a bunch of people uninsured and unable to afford it, and small business not being able to compete because they can't provide private insurance so that has to be fixed.

I'm curious what people from other countries can share about this. I remember talking to some co-workers from the UK, and they actually pay for private insurance ... which is kind of a red flag for me. They pay twice then, in taxes and then like us, but have never gotten a good answer why that is.

Drowned out? Does responsible debate on this issue even exist? The left is constantly talking about rising healthcare costs, without actually producing a plan that reduces them, while the right is busy trying to redefine socialism as anything that involves the government, unless people support it.

The closest I can think of was a Fresh Air broadcast where Stuart Butler and Paul Krugman discussed the competing agendas at length:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=111173038

ElCap, in every other industrialized country there is no for profit basic insurance. It's illegal and can get you jailed in a lot of countries. So, even if it's a private business and not any kind of public service, the companies providing services are forbidden by law from running that aspect of their business on a for-profit basis. So, if you want plastic surgery or a private room at the hospital or whatever else, you can buy that a la carte or however from a for-profit insurance company, but basic healthcare can't be run that way.

To your first point, as Elliot Spitzer says, all the regulations and regulators were around during the latest catastrophic financial bubble. Look how much good it did. I think you underestimate the power of these corporations and the super-rich CEOs that run them (and the congresspeople they own).

That's not an excuse for not imposing regulation, plus I think regulation in this area would be a lot easier to enforce, partly because it would impact everybody (not obscure financial matters most of the population doesn't even understand).

I think it's more than plastic surgery and luxury rooms at the hospital;
http://www.euro.who.int/document/Obs...surance_UK.pdf

It seems to address waiting times, coverage of experimental procedures and options for brand drugs.

BTW that study says the supplementary insurance doesn't cover plastic surgeries.

You go so quickly from extolling the virtues of harsh regulations on the private health insurance market in other industrialized nations, to calling any prospective regulation here feckless, that I think I just developed whiplash.

Rather than get bogged down in things like whether or not the CDS market was actually regulated or not, what exactly is the reason why healthcare costs have gone up so astronomically in this country? As far as I know, it has very little to do with private insurers collecting a profit, and everything to do with the fact that our system incentivizes the funneling of people towards costly, and ineffectual, treatments.

So, public option or not, wouldn’t a heavily regulated market be able to address that? Wouldn’t an employer mandate to either provide health insurance, or pay into a fund, allow for virtually universal coverage (assuming practices like recision or denying applicants due to preexisting conditions are banned)?

I know the Republicans are too busy calling everyone a socialist to make a coherent argument, but why exactly wouldn’t something like that work?

Hang on a second, Girma. Sorry to do this, but I have to address your post line by line.

I think "extolling the virtues" is a misrepresentation, but anyway, I drew a comparison between criminal laws and what passes for corporate regulation in this country, which renders it essentially voluntary. If you'd like more on this subject, read or listen to anything Eliot Spitzer has said over the past couple of months. If you live in a country where the economic royalists and corporatists have grown more powerful than the government, there is essentially no real police force that can take them on. If you want to argue that, I'll take that argument (maybe not here). The point is, no public official appears to be immune to the power these multinational corporations wield, and that's not likely to change until we have entirely public elections with no private financing and anti-corruption laws that makes the kind of lobbying going on a criminal offense.

So, when an insured person is denied an expensive treatment because of a so-called pre-existing condition, or when an insured person is dropped from his/her policy on the cusp of some expensive treatment because of some technicality, that incentivizes funneling people towards costly or ineffectual treatments? When a CEO makes $1 billion in bonuses, contributing to the 30 or 40% overhead that gets worked into the premiums of an insured person, that is a direct result of funneling people towards costly or ineffectual treatments? This argument doesn't hold water because it addresses only a very narrow slice of the overall picture. Until opponents of a public option come up with a better argument against increased competition to bring costs down, the argument will have to continue to rely on irrational scare tactics and lobbying of corrupt Washington sellouts.

No, because politicians are susceptible to financial pressure and regulators are only as good as the people backing them up, which would be nobody except the occasional honest congress person (like Bernie Sanders, for example).

I'm not against the first idea, but do you really think the insurance companies will allow anyone to curb their current extremely profitable practices? That fight would be akin to the fight against a public option and would be subject to equally disgusting dirty tactics. And even if it did, who's going to enforce it once they put armies of paper-pushers on the case of finding loopholes?

Hopefully, I presented a reasonable opposing viewpoint.

But one thing I ask you to consider: why are the big insurance conglomerates and drug companies spending so much money and using such immoral and dangerous tactics to fight a public option? Isn't competition supposed to be the essence of capitalism?

It's the American way. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.


Liberty: the power of choice.


Why do you think there is Anti-trust laws in the United States? It's to prevent a trust \ company \ organization from having a monopoly. The current private insurance companies we have in place compete with each other and their rates must be competitive and offer a wide range of services and coverage's to try and entice you into their plans. You don't get any more American then that! What is being discussed in the long term here, the single payer system? That is very un-American. There is no choice, you accept the government health plan and the services and prices they determine or you are out of luck, there will be no alternative because they will have driven them out of business.

It is hard to compete against the government! They set the rules and they can use taxation to subsidize the costs (as they have been proposing). Why will the government be able to offer cheaper health insurance? because they're going to TAX the difference! Unless you work at McDonalds you'll end up paying more for your health insurance through the government plan and if you happen to still be on a private plan (before they're run out of business) you'll be paying for OTHER peoples insurance through taxation. Nothing being discussed is going to address the costs of health care. What is being offered to us is, in terms of government savings, a plan that based on the amount of people it will have under it, will get a better discount. That is EXACTLY what private insurance companies do to any large business. If you have a large corporation, you get better rates then a small business with less employee's. The reason? they have a large paying pool to help absorb the costs. This is why a lot of cities have started to create organizations for local small business's to join to give them better purchasing power on insurance.

As to the actual care that will be provided by the government. Do you honestly expect to receive the same care as your current plan? Let's look 10-15 years from now when the private sector has been driven out of the game and it's all government all the time. You don't think they're going to ration care to help save costs? You don't think the party in charge won't play partisan politics with what they feel should be covered? They've done it before with Medicare and other countries have rationed health care procedures or eliminated them to help reduce bloated costs. Heck, our current emergency protocol for dealing with H1N1 virus is to give medicine to essential and emergency personnel before treatment is to go towards the general populace. Do you think that policy will be altered if the government has a say in ALL treatment ALL the time?

I was just giving an example. There are a lot of different systems out there. A Washington Post journalist made a documentary for Frontline called "Sick Around the World" where he went all over the place and explored all the different systems, from single payer to regulated private insurers and everything in between. When he then made a follow-up documentary called "Sick in America," the one thing that PBS edited out, causing a huge problem for the journalist and ultimately having him bumped from the piece entirely, was the fact that in other countries where buying health insurance is mandatory, those services could not be offered on a for-profit basis:
Source.

My wife had gotten sick last year, and I mean REALLY SICK Blue Cross spent over $200,000.00 in treatment for her, she was never dropped. Only down side is that we had to wait a month to see a neurologist. So I guess I'll be the only person here that is THANKFUL for the insurance company, when ever we had a problem with the company, it was dealt with in a timely manner and she's completely fine now.

So I guess we are some of the few that have had a good experience with the Health Care industry.

Snaieke, i'm afraid this thing you posted, wherever it came from, fails in the first graph. Here's something you might not know:

More here.

That's great, and I'm really glad your wife got the care she needed. I wish that were the case with every American.

I actually wasn’t looking for an opposing viewpoint, as I’m not particularly invested in any specific ideology on this topic. What I was looking for was a reason as to why a public option is viewed as a necessity, when every economist I’ve ever heard talk about this subject, even Paul Krugman, never mentions the pursuit of profit as one of the primary reasons for the accelerating growth in healthcare spending.

And sorry for only responding to this, but the rest of your reply was so full of tangential talking points and contradictory arguments I couldn’t respond to it in anything resembling a coherent fashion.

Yeah yt, your point is lost in a sea of unnecessary buzzwords.

I'm also very happy with my insurance, and I suspect it's probably better than a lot of the public options mentioned here. But my problem is with the people who don't have it or can't afford it ... in addition, if you try to get it on your own (instead of if you work a at large company) your options change and getting equivalent insurance is very difficult if not too expensive.

There's also little practical stuff like if you start a small company, you'll have a hard competing with larger companies because it's going to be very costly for you to provide equivalent medical insurance and get that top talent. A purely private system as we have now is actually really bad for small businesses.

Welcome to the irony of my life. No matter how clear something seems to me, I'm not a person that will ever convince anyone of anything.

But if you're truly disinvested then I suggest you look into the single payer argument. It does bring costs down, and has around the world and here at home through the VA and medicare. Our government pays twice as much as every other industrialized nation in the world for health care and yet we're something like 36th in terms of health care outcomes, with almost 50 million uninsured Americans and half of all bankruptcies in this country related to health care costs. Why is that? Medicare has a 3% overhead and private insurers have a 30 - 40% overhead. Why?

I think you make great arguments for a public option, which would alleviate the substantial insurance costs they have to assume to be competitive and scrupulous. And it would free workers to have some mobility and not be a slave to a company that provides health insurance.

You don’t need a public option for there to be universal access, as an employer mandate to either provide health insurance, or pay additional taxes would solve that problem regardless. As for ballooning healthcare costs, a public option, alone, does not come close to bending that curve.

And that’s just it, a single payer plan isn’t a public option, and isn’t even up for discussion in this country. Which again, makes me wonder why we’re going to risk health insurance reform—in its entirety—when things like universal access, the banning of recision, and employer mandates are right there for the taking.

If this were an argument for expanding Medicare to all, raising taxes to pay for it, and relegating the private insurers to secondary plans on top of the one plan to rule them all, I’d get it…but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Well, it may not be a realistic option, and it's not getting much attention, but pseudo-Single Payer certainly is out there in the form of HR 676. http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/

It's got 85 co-sponsors.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/single...presentatives/

Thanks yt.

All my wife and I want is more affordable health care, not care run by the government and I believe that is what a majority of people want as well.

LOL. I know, right? Can the government ever get anything(military, roads, police, firefighters, safe food/drugs, cushy environment for business) right? Why would these "people" you're projecting your idiotic views onto want a semi-accountable democratic entity like the government taking the lead on healthcare instead of a totalitarian institution they have no recourse against unless they are high publicity case that demands attention. Struggling to pay insurance premiums to struggling to pay legal fees while you may or may not die. Sweet.

This whole idiotic debate is about who gets to be the paper pushers/money changers between patients and doctors. It can't be the government because it just... can't. The inefficient government would put the supposedly indispensable insurance companies that skim 20% to 30% off the top out of business with a public option because it would be too efficient? Seriously, what the fuck? I would love to hear a legitimate anti-reform/anti-public option argument that doesn't boil down to shilling for insurance profits.

Ever wonder why business propaganda hammers home the government should get out of the way/government can't do anything canard? Because the federal government is one of the only entities that actually can do something.

All the bullshit about costs, the CBO, and being "deficit neutral" completely distracts from the moral and ethical necessity of improving people's lives. Crazy talk, I know. Let's go spend billions of magic money on bombs.

Sometimes I want to hit these astro-turf mobs with a baseball bat. I look at these idiots and wonder how many of them are insured and how much those who are insured are paying for their coverage? They are literally rooting against their own interests. If they only knew how cheap it is to get quality health care anywhere else in the world, they'd be pissed.

I remember getting an ear infection in the Philippines and going to see a specialist there for it. Total cost of the visit plus meds? $20. That's not a co-pay and this was a private hospital. That's just the real cost of things over there. You can see this scenario play out in literally dozens of countries around the world including many less developed/poorer than our own.

It took my having to go to another country to wake the fuck up as to how corrupt our system here is. If more people knew the truth about health care in other countries, there would be some serious change in this country. As it stands, I assume most Americans really think health care has to cost tens of thousands of dollars. They don't realize that it's hyper inflated here in the States and that other countries offer care at the real cost.

So, we spend about $7400 a year per person per person on health care this year. This plan proposes to provide roughly 34 million people coverage for 10 years at the cost of $1 trillion. That amounts to a cost of about $3000 per person per year. This is considered a bad thing?

It is estimated that about 20-25% of healthcare costs come from profit on the various levels. So at the 20% rate, that was about $450 billion a year. Seems to me you could add a 20% profit sin tax and pay for the program and have a surplus.

The US is the only 1st world country that doesn't have it already, we pity you for it.

When some fat republican starts going on about how evil it is, and some americans believe it, despite it coming from some cunt that's been paid off by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries with a 'cadillac" health insurance package, we pity you.

It's like the disciples of Bush just won't give up the ghost.

The thing that really saddens me is that while the bluster continues, more people lose because their insurer screws them and the american hospitals dump them on the street to die.

American. Hospitals. Dump. poor. people. on. the. street. to. die.

Just for one second think about more than yourself and consider helping your fellow Americans, become a human being.

The really sad thing is, that like the Cash for clunkers, when it's a rousing success those same right-wing shits will continue to shoot it down for being TOO successful.

It is U.S. public law that hospitals have to treat you regardless of your ability to pay. If/when something like that does happen people get fired/imprisoned and major fines and lawsuits are paid.

I also like how apparently the U.S. has the best model for healthcare bar none according to all the people who have never experienced healthcare outside the U.S., yet none of the horrible countries with horrible "socialized" healthcare have adopted our infinitely superior healthcare system.

An article I just got from one of the publications I subscribe to for work.

I hate that we seem to have pretty much adopted the term "socialized healthcare" (never gonna stop putting that shit in quotes), because it shifts the frame of discussion further towards socialism/all the other scare tactics that seem to be getting lots of play, but whatever. It's too late now.

No. They. Don't.

Seriously dude, really.

My idiotic view is for a smaller government. So call me crazy

good rant though, I'll give you that.

Well, there's this, though it's not as hyperbolic.

EDIT: re: dumping poor people to die

shit, that's just wrong .. hope someone gets their asses fired and arrested for this.

How typically Republican: Ask politicians questions you read on the Internet, and ask those questions by yelling and interrupting.

Applause, Zhukov, that was really well put!

One of my favorite things whenever I hear conservatives and libertarians rant against the government in calling for a smaller one is the seeming lack of remembrance that what the US has is a representative democracy. That when you mean you don't trust the government, you are also saying you don't trust the people around you who voted the representatives into power. Or are you saying you don't like the lobbyists and the corporations who are buying those representatives? If its the latter, that's easier to deal with -- we just need better regulation in place (such as the neutered McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill) to deal with their influence. If it is the former, well, sorry bub, but unless you know how to brainwash people and take away their liberty to choose, then you are gonna have to learn to talk to them and negotiate compromises.

Or we could go another route -- maybe the US is just too damn big now as a country, with too many people in it. If you look at Canada and the European countries that have a single payer or some combo of government/privatized healthcare, those countries are dealing with a fraction of the people the US is. Living in Denmark right now, which does the combo package I think makes the most sense (govt handles basic, private handles elective), there are only like 5.5 million people -- I've also lived in Los Angeles, which alone as 4 million.

Not that I am calling for civil war or bloodshed or anything like that -- I am just reflecting on how many times Heinlein wrote about the future of the US as no longer being the US but a landmass of various countries, perhaps more like the EU. Should this be the future?

I don't know...but it is hard to talk about any type of "socialized healthcare" when you got so many friggin people in your society...

And for anyone wondering why the Dems have their asses up their heads and can't seem to get things working well (as I have, progressive libber that I am), well, this is an interesting read...http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature...ism/index.html