Healthcare Plan Misinformation Video-induced Debate

Remove all ads!

I am not sure but didnt Greenspan speak up and take a large share of the blame of the housing crisis a few months ago? Fairly sure I read somewhere about him saying that he made a few wrong calls that was a big part of why we are where we are now.

 

Yes, he did joacqin, to some extent -- I was hoping he would go more in depth.

 

In this instance, it would be more like a documentary, rather than a movie. Nevertheless, historians still study some historical figures who believed they were right at a particular moment in history, and turned out to be wrong in the long run. The policies of Greenspan did not occur in a vacuum, but were part and parcel of the larger Bush adminstration policies in response to 9/11. Years from now historians will more than likely see that as a watershed moment in the nation's history.

http://www.sorcerers.net/shop/1_1000_0143114166_The-Age-of-Turbulence-Adventures-in-a-New-World.html

But judging by your remarks, T2, you must have been reading this one:

http://www.sorcerers.net/shop/1_100...-AGE-OF-IGNORANCE-AT-THE-FEDERAL-RESERVE.html

In this instance, you would have to ask a REAL Nazi: Would he be more inclinded to vote for Obama, or a white candidate?

 

Chandos, that's mostly results of what has been done (not even what was actually done, just the spin and results) and what kind of goals he'd like to achieve. I'm sure we all want to:

The question is how to achieve it and what costs are acceptable.

Plus, that's just the latest report on it. What will it say in a month or two?

 

That Obama has left up to Congress to decide. Congress is full of, and influenced by, self-interested parties, and hence the confusion (and why most of the country sees reform as a failure).

 

The latest Rasmussan poll (8/10/09) says that 51% fear the federal government more than private insurance companies while only 41% believe the opposite.

In addition 41% view the town hall protestors favorably, 35% unfavorably, and 23% undecided. 51% belive the protestors are reflecting the concerns of their neighbors, 37% think they are phony efforts, and 14% are unsure.

 

TGS - Different polls show somewhat different results. As to fearing "government insurance," we've covered this heap of baloney: It's good enough for the elderly (Meidcare), the military, postal workers, and those in Congress. It would be more interesting to see what the people who are already on "government insurance" think about. Why don't you ask your Congressman what he/she thinks about it, TGS? I'm going to ask mine next week, when I pay an in-person visit to his office. I'll be sure to let you know what Republican Congressman Kevin Brady thinks of his own insurance, provided by the US taxpayer and the Federal Government.

---------- Added 2 hours, 16 minutes and 47 seconds later... ----------

Regarding self-interestd parties n Congress:

After all the talking points we've heard from Republicans regarding government spending, this proves that it doesn't matter which party is in power, since they are still going to look after their own interests (remember the Dems complained about Bush's spending too).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32358497/ns/politics-cq_politics/

 

I wouldn't lump the military with 'government insurance' -- the military has their own doctors and home grown specialists. Some are good, some are not so good; but no military doctor can be sued for malpractice which allows for some questionable treatment regimes.

One of the biggest problems I had was you couldn't see a non-military specialists unless the commanding officer of the military hospital was willing to admit his command couldn't handle the issue or had handled it badly. I actually had a shipmate who died because of the political BS in military medicine -- had he received even adequate treatment (and he was right next to one of the top facilities in the world) his four children might have grown up knowing their father. Unfortunately, nearly everyone I know who retired in the military knows at least one person (and usually several) who died at the hands of inept military doctors -- with absolutely no recourse. But then the government does give the surviving spouses $250,000.

 

T2 - I think the $250,000 is more than the cap put in place by the state of Texas in the same event (malpractice). As to your other point, the same is true of private doctors as well. In some private plans you cannot see doctors outside of your network, which sometimes leads to the same issues.

 

True, but at least doctor in health plans have finished residency -- over half of the military doctors have not been through residency. Residency is allowed after serving four years, but not required.

 

1.) Because it's the most extreme and inflamatory example. Come on, this is politics!
2.) Name another fascist government you thing the average red-neck American will know. Most Americans are really only good at history where wars the US was involved in are concerened, and even there many are iffy. EVERYONE knows Hitler and the Nazis, but I'd bet not more than 10% would even know who Mussolini was!

Bush was never a talker. Everyone knew even before he was elected the first time that the man couldn't talk his way out of a wet paper bag. I have a pastor who's similar (music ministry). The man is great, very intelligent, very spiritual, very wise, and very bad with words. People got mad at him because they didn't like what he was doing, but what he did worked (insomuch as it achieved the planned goals). They immediately jumped on his bad speech and insulted him for it, but over 8 years, it actually became accepted criticism. I have actually met people who thought Bush was an idiot, that he was 'slow', that his IQ was sup-par. Yes, the Birthers are like that, taking what started as a suspicious criticism, ignoring fact, and ending up in a radical position.

... You want me to yell louder than them? You really want me to get in a shouting contest with these guys? I don't think I have the lungs for it, honestly. I do understand what you're saying, but it's not really feasible, any more than it was feasible for the Dems to shut up Code Pink when Bush was in power (though I'm honestly not sure they wanted to).

That's why you're not a politician. And why I like you.

And that's a perfect example of what I mean. It's an extremist statement, and probably not really representative of what would really happen, but people have seriously tossed around the idea of restricting coverage on the public plan based on the projected amount of benefit the patient could enjoy (meaning the elderly, having fewer years, would get lower priority; same with mentally retarded, Down's Syndrome, etc). I don't think Obama's ever proposed it, but it has been proposed.

Now, you see, this is what I'm talking about. This isn't actually talking about the proposal, but about the consequences thereof. I've read the actual part of the Senate bill that they're talking about, and neither of them get it. The actual bill calls for everyone on Medicare to receive mandatory counceling every 5 years. That counceling would cover a whole slew of end-of-life issues, from regular wills and living wills, to what a DNR is, to estates, trusts, and yes, even how to die peacefully. The point is to educate the elderly and make sure they know what their options really are and how best to achieve them. I like it. It's not even close to what Obama was talking about, though.

Furthermore, this didn't actually say: here's the plan. Instead it said, "Here's what we promise (no promises were actually made, but this is standard politispeak) to deliver to you!" It was basically flavorless propaganda.

 

This provides two exquisite examples for why this line of argument is only meant to be inflammatory and populist, and is completely free of substance - as I suspected. If one needs to go to such lengths to prove that someone is a fascist, it obviously isn't an argument worth standing on. Glad we're on the same page.

But, again, the birther nonsense has NO basis in fact. Calling Bush 'retarded' or 'slow' is simply an admittedly juvenile extension of what is established fact: George W. Bush committed a staggering amount of faux pas, embarrassing or nonsensical statements during his tenure, and had a near-unanimous reputation for having a weak command of the issues (according to other world leaders). I am not merely suspicious of these things, they happened. "Doofus" is probably better than "slow," but when you're stooping to that level anyway the distinction hardly matters.

True, but the Democratic establishment has made it a point to distance itself from both Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan. They initially associated with both, but once Code Pink started with their more embarrassing and disruptive tactics, the relationship soured. Cindy Sheehan feels "betrayed" by the Democratic establishment, and talks more trash about the party now than just about anyone. No such disavowal comes from the Republicans. In fact, elected GOP officials like Michelle Bachman and James Inhoffe are the ones who help keep this nonsense going. Congressman John Sullivan (R-OK) just this week said: "This is a scary time in Washington. It’s a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that’s frightening. That’s from a guy that can’t even show a long-form birth certificate." Again, that scaremongering, cynical dreck comes from a prominent, elected GOP official.

So, yes, I want you to be louder than these a-holes. I want them to listen to you and realize how silly they are being. I want you to make them ashamed of themselves, because they won't listen to anyone else.

I bolded two portions of this passage. The first: yes, it's an extremist statement...delivered by Sarah Palin, the woman you voted for for Vice President and is one of the most prominent and popular members of your party right now. When extremist rhetoric is uttered by some idiot blogger, I don't care. When it's uttered by people with real influence and power, I shudder. Because extremism, uttered by the popular and influential, tends to become mainstream.

The second: you're right, Obama has never proposed this, and that's my whole point. Sarah Palin specifically stated that it was actually Obama's policy to make her go before a "death panel" to decide the fate of her Down Syndrome baby. She stated as fact something that is absolute crazy talk, and she does not appear to see the need to correct herself any time soon. Though her stock is indeed falling, her voice still happens to carry a great deal of weight in your party. Hell, it's gospel to a significant chunk of it. Does this not bother you?

Your points about the AARP part are noted, I'll try to find something more concrete to post, unless someone like Drew or Chandos beats me to it.

 

DR, on the Code Pink analogy, remember that this whole thing is relatively new. How long did it take the Dems to distance themselves from Code Pink? And that was just a seperate organization. I am starting to fear that the Republican party may end up splitting, but if so I think the moderate part will end up taking most of the current Republicans and many current Independants (may even merge with the Libertarians, not sure) and come out a powerful party anyway, while the other faction will just be the most extreme right-wing idiots. Understand, though, that this will take some time, and the louder the extremists are, the shorter that time will be.

As for Sarah Palin, I think she may end up being the leadership of that new fringe party.

 

Be on the lookout as the "astrotufing" is about to get more intense.

George Soros to kick in $5M to HCAN

Spoiler

In another sign of the urgency gripping the pro-health care reform camp, billionaire George Soros has pledged to sink $5 million into the fight, the group getting the money confirmed.

Soros — whose operation carefully guards the privacy of such donations — made the pledge to Health Care For America Now, the leading coalition of pro-reform groups, unions and providers, HCAN chief Richard Kirsch confirmed in an email that was forwarded to me.

Kirsch was asked by a prominent liberal blogger to comment for a post on Soros’ $5 million pledge, which the blogger had heard about. “Thanks for the heads up,” Kirsch emailed in reply. “HCAN is pleased to be supported by people and organizations who support our campaign to win quality, affordable health care for all.”

The blogger, who didn’t end up writing about the donation, passed the email along, and an HCAN spokesperson didn’t dispute the email or the figure when I asked about it.

The Soros pledge is noteworthy, because both sides will seize on it. The right will say it shows the real astroturfing is coming from the pro-reform side — billionaire bogeyman Soros is bankrolling this fight!

The left will cite the donation to demand that HCAN show real results. Some on the left, such as blogger Jane Hamsher, have been asking why heavily-bankrolled HCAN hasn’t been able to secure more commitments from Dem members of Congress to stand firm behind a public option.

HCAN officials regularly appear at a big weekly meeting of progressive groups — the one where Rahm Emanuel famously demanded last week that groups stop attacking other Dems. The question is whether HCAN will heed Rahm’s command and refrain from pressuring Dems to stand up for core reform principles. If so, the question becomes, What are you using all this money for?

This one (courtesy of Malkin) really cracked me up. Apparantly one side is using Craigslist to recruit protestors. I wonder how many of those old people showing up at the town meetings and causing the ruckus were recruited using Craig's list? I'm guessing "not so many"


EDIT: I'm trying to come up with a better name for this thread, as I find the one currently here kind of inflammatory.

 

True NOG, but as I said, Code Pink didn't start out that way, they radicalized. The Tea Partiers were radical and nutty from the get-go, and are being embraced in their current nutty form by the GOP establishment. It doesn't bode well for the party in general.

As for the party split, I see why you might think so (I'm tempted to, myself), but I think that's extremely unlikely. It would give too much of an electoral advantage to the Democrats, and most in the GOP establishment would rather maintain the loose alliance with the internal factions they loath than risk the long-term dominance of the Democrats.

 

Here is a great article by CNN/Money on the five key freedoms you will lose under Obamacare.
I am assuming they have read the bill as I know I haven't. I still would like every member of Congress to attest to if they have read the bill and understand it before they pass it. Is that too much to ask?

Spoiler

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Let's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.

Today, many states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and they're a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group, from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure "children" until the age of 26. That's just the starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore, wouldn't even know what's in their plans and what they're required to pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating. Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of their age or medical condition.

Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.

Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more than $5,000.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs. It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a market, and health care needs more of it, not less.

Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5 million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan -- say for major medical costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. "The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. "And they could do it after the bills are passed."

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the bills appear to say otherwise. It's worth diving into the weeds -- the territory where most pundits and politicians don't seem to have ventured.

The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX, Fortune 500) and most other big companies.

The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are "grandfathered." Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they want -- they're exempt from standard packages and community rating and can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive states.

But read on.

The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified" policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we've already discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, "keeping your own plan" has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you'll get dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it could happen a lot earlier.

The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges.

The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch. If the plan changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every year, it's likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges -- and as we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get their care through something called "medical home." Medical home is similar to an HMO. You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America's health-care cost explosion.

The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans -- if they exist -- would be barred from charging sick or elderly patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they're healthy and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. "That would kill fee-for-service in a hurry," says Goodman.

In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year "grace period" that's barely being discussed.

Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their employers. It won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it's likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially since they'll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's strictly taboo in the bills). I'll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms.

 

Thanks, Snook. This kind of thing is exactly why I didn't want Congress getting too involved in health care reform. It isn't that it can't be done well, just that it won't be done well. Many of those ideas, on the surface, sound fine and dandy, but when you actually stop and think about what they'd mean, especially together, it's terrifying.

What's worse is that it appears the government will be deciding which doctors can practice and which can't, not based on a standardized testing scheme, or oversight from something like the AMA, but rather based on their whims. You get assigned a primary care doctor through the government (and if the local assigning agent doesn't like doctor X, doctor X may as well move), and that doctor then decides not only when you need a specialist, but what specialist you get (and don't think for a second that doctors are immune to rivalries and grudges).

Good bye open market for doctors and better business practices and hello to the whole new world of the medical Old Boy's network, where who you know is more important than what you know.

Sure, that's a worst case analysis, but a very realistic one.

 

NOG - The legislation is not finished yet. And the guy who wrote this "piece" provides no sources. If you choose to believe this crap, go ahead. I can't because the legislation has not been finished yet, and I'm as anxious as everyone else to see the final bill. As some of us have already commented, Obama is not drafting the bill, despite this guy's ranting that it's what Obama is "proposing." Thusly, he has no idea what he is talking about.

Whether you or Snook like government insurance or not is up to you, and frankly I don't give a flip if you do or not. That's your choice. Millions of people are already on government insurance and they do just fine. Many other American are looking for more choice, since their experiences with the private insurance companies hasn't been all that great.

 

Your welcome. I felt the need to counter the argument that Pelosi and company are espousing that the Tea Party people are cranks and making stuff up. If anything it looks like the Tea Party people have done more reading of the bill then the people who will be voting on it.

It makes me shudder.