Experts Criticise Healthcare Reform, Recommend A Solution That Sounds Just Like the Congressional Plan
By Susie Madrak Sunday Jul 26, 2009 6:45am
Bill Moyers interviewed health care experts Marcia Angell and Trudy Lieberman about the Obama healthcare reform proposals this week, and their remarks are being quoted all over the blogosphere this weekend. Sounds like pretty depressing stuff - it has many bloggers upset. (Complete transcript here.) But read it carefully:
BILL MOYERS: Given what you've said, why the rush? Why not slow this down and give this very big issue more due deliberation?
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: It's really a political calculation. And I think that they believe that they have to act quickly, because it might not happen. Because the sooner you have the special interests going back home, during the August recess and holding town hall meetings and talking to people in coffee shops, they're going to find that maybe this isn't something that people really want or have doubts about.
MARCIA ANGELL: Well, I think we are in a hurry. I think that President Obama's worried, that what happened with the Clinton plan can happen with him. And I do have a feeling of déjà vu all over again. That this is like 1993. That the opposition is having a chance to mobilize. To march out these Canadians who say they had brain tumors and had to die. Or these ads that say 20 percent of Europeans drop dead.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: And Harry and Louise are back.
MARCIA ANGELL: And I think he does. He is right to worry about that. And he is right to want to do it in a hurry. The problem is he is not doing the right thing.
BILL MOYERS: Because?
MARCIA ANGELL: Well, the plan is not for all the reasons we've said. It leaves the bad guys in place. And it tries to kind of make concessions. And what the Clintons found out is they too wanted to keep the private insurance industry at the table. And maybe regulate them a little. And what the private insurance industry decided was, "Why should we take half a loaf when we can have the whole thing?" And that's what I'm seeing happen. Happening now.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: We are having the same debate, almost, that we had in '93-'94. And it's something I've written about for the Columbia Journalism Review. It's actually the same debate we've had decades before. And it's the unwillingness to look at what we could learn from other systems. Single payer, multiple payers, as they have in Germany and Japan. Or even in the Netherlands, where there are private payers. What's really happening there?
So, I think there's an unwillingness on the part of politicians-- on the part of advocacy groups, some advocacy groups, to really educate Americans on what the possibilities are. And we at C.J.R. have been saying we really have not had a vibrant discussion about other possibilities.
MARCIA ANGELL: I think we have to start all over on this. I really do. I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.
Okay, so the experts have looked at what's happening and they have their own recommendations. Now, let's look at this comment at Open Left in response to the Moyers piece:
And now, besides "starting over," what is the difference in the approach suggested by these policy analysts? "You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state." I thought the gradualism was awful? And I thought the most vibrant version of the Bill moving out of the House HELP committee had an Amendment, passed bipartisanly, that makes provision for, makes the rules allowing, gives permission to: States Implementing Statewide Single Payer Systems.
They continue:
"It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done."
So except for "starting over" - they are in complete agreement with the present process. I think they want a title on the final Bill that says "We are moving to Single Payer, don't be too patient or in too much of a hurry." But otherwise, despite their trepidation, they have a descriptive laying out of congress's and the administration's arm-twisting, panderer-molifying, greed distracting, regionally diverse and constantly-attacked plan of action, as it appears to be moving through the tunnel of that resembles Hunter S. Thompson's description of "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
What they want is so close to what is happening as to be merely a description.
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The Congressional plan so far amounts to a giveaway to the powers that be. Of course not as massive as the trillions shuttled to the Wall Street Mafia.
Trillions to crooks on Wall Street, pennies to the people.
Single Payer is the only way.
and the internet refuse to call it what it really is. Healthcare Insurance company bailout disguised as universal healthcare. How much money will the insurance industry make, when people are forced to buy insurance, regardless of wealth and regardless if the government helps pay for it? This is going to change claim denials and paperwork runarounds? Governments the world over now force every citizen that drives to purchase insurance. Has it lowered the costs to consumers? Has it improved claims? Has it made any changes whatsoever in how the insurance industry screws people out of their money?
forced insurance. You sound like a repug, "you will be forced to buy health insurance from the goverment at hundreds of dollars".
Show me where it says this.
Obama's plan. It's similar to Hillary's from the pre-election and similar to McCain's.
is it similar.
You will have to have health insurance and prove it. How much money will the insurance industry make off the millions uninsured now? Whether it's with government assistance or not, the insurance industry is still the big winner here. This isn't universal healthcare, it's uninversal insurance, just like car insurance.
Take a look at this video and report:
Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job’
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/25/spitze...
The ABC of a Ponzi squeme...
Thank you!
I like Spitzer °, he is making a come back.
trudy lieberman become a expert on anything. this is a nother repug hack just like that bitch liz chanie. I just dont understand WHY any one but fox would give these assholes a place to put out there bullshit. Some times I think its all bullshit,just keep the shit going while the working class people keep going to wal-mart and turn on there Tv to see more shit on the tube. If this helath care wan no threat to the insurances companies, why are they spending 1.3 million dollars to make sure it dies. Hell the people of this country and others have been F-ed over by the rich for the last 60 years. If you get a person from congress who has good questions, trys to get the CEO's to answer some questions, the press trashes them.Look at Ron Paul or Dennis C. The press makes them out to look like wackos. All you have to see is WHO is getting the money out of this. Don't look for any one to fix any thing, the powers that control every thing will stop them.
The HAVES vs the HAVE-NOTS. Something will snap soon or maybe the swine flu pandemic will make everyone equal...
tell me again, what makes these two women experts in healthcare reform. It seemed to me that they were just offerring their opinions.
These experts aren't criticizing health care reform, they're criticizing the lousy bill that Democrats are calling health care reform, the one that further entrenches the status quo, requiring people to buy affordable, i.e., crappy, health insurance.
We want real reform. Single payer, first dollar, universal health care.
Since most of the elected crooks (this is a bipartisan problem) are afraid to bite the hand that bribes them, she's right... we won't get real reform in healthcare.
I pay over $800./month for family plan through my employer and it keeps going up. They'll throw some feel good legislation together that will stop the increases, perhaps even lower it a hair but that will be it. Look how well they lowered the stranglehold on oil. Now we're HAPPY to pay $3./gallon instead of $4+/gallon for gasolene even though we really should be paying less than $2./gallon.
The single largest problem in our country is how these monopolies can buy our politicians election after election.
The cost of medical malpractice insurance is obscene.
Some kind of tort reform is needed here.
And if yer addressing Medical malpractice insurance, why not the cost of college? Toss in some sort of Ameri-Corps training program to defray the costs of medical school in exchange for a commitment of several years at a Clinic/office in some underserved portion of the country?
I hope they didn't have to march them too far, what with them having brain tumors, and being dead and all. And these people are accepted as experts?
Canada, where health care for all means health care for none.
While in the US, no health insurance and no money means brain surgery to fit your schedule.
Only in the Orwellian opposite-world of conservative politics.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090726/D99L...
Now does anybody....and I'll repeat it...ANYBODY actually think these groups give a tinker's damn if Joe Blow from Michigan has healthcare?? If food looks bad, smells bad, and the taste makes you ill, then it isn't good food, now is it?
I think single payer may only be possible after another election. Right now the CBO is not being asked to score single payer, which would highlight its advantages on cost. My biggest concern was mentioned in Bill Moyer's piece...the legislation that comes out of congress will set up a weak public option designed to eventually hold the unprofitable (sickest individuals). Mandates will provide Insurance and Pharma with new customers and profits will actually go higher. Later, the public option will become a sink hole and they will be able to point to it and say, 'See, the public option was a bad idea.' Then, true healthcare reform is dead for another 20 years.
Marcia says it: Obama's plan "...leaves the bad guys in place".
So we will get nowhere because Obama won't confront them.
If we were serious about universal health care, which we are not, we would investigate what other countries have successfully accomplished.
But that would entail admitting that there are other intelligent people in the world. That there is more than just USA USA USA. And we're not ready for that.
Exactly. Americans love sucking baseball covered turds coming out of Excelsior exhaust pipes too much to notice that they haven't enslaved or murdered anyone watching them do it.
“So we will get nowhere because Obama won't confront them.”
The finance and insurance industries were Obama's largest corporate campaign donors. You get the government you pay for. The influence peddling is not confined to the Congress. We had a tip off when insurance man Warren Buffet was supporting Obama.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
About 4:39 into the clip, Obama's campaign finances are discussed. The clip is about the financial collapse but insurance is mentioned.
There are two problems, first, our present approach costs too much, and second, not everyone is covered. It looks like only the second problem, dealing with the uninsured, is being addressed, because we're hearing about ways to "pay" for reform. With cost reform, we would be hearing about the money we would "save".
Health care chases 1 in 6 dollars in our economy, soon to be 1 and 5 dollars, and once the baby boomers get a little older, 1 in 4 dollars. Pretty soon, national defense and health care will consume all dollars, and there will be no money to eat.
That'll solve the obesity problem, because you only eat when you get a prescription for a big mac.
Ross Perot stated the solution best years ago, study the systems in the other industrial countries and copy the best one. In our government of lobby controlled influence peddlers, that approach was "off the table".
"National Healthcare: Because It Can't Get Any Worse"
http://www.nothirdsolution.com/2009/07/20/nat...
He seems to contradict himself in his article. He starts saying how an evil insurance representative is not to be trusted, but then says most of the problems are with government intervention.
So, if the government is the problem, why the distrust of Cohen? And if insurance cannot be trusted, who keeps them inline if we get rid of government intervention? I guess the "free-market," yeah right.
I think the author caught himself almost telling the truth in that article: that there is no middle ground, we need free market care or nationalized care and the free-market profiteers are the scum of the earth & are ruining the former, but then realized that was at odds with his ideology and gave stupid cop-out answers that all other countries' care sucks (when it doesn't) and government used to pay lot for hammers.
You keep telling tens of millions of people don't deserve insurance and should die in the streets with your 'hammer' argument. Us serious people will continue to push for a real solution.
Please show proof that "free-market profiteers are the scum of the earth...."
Wow, is that a real challenge?
Here's results from 10 minutes research from 1 google search:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/29/obam...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFR_hHeCV9k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXQPIooS1dc
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/opinion/...
http://bluecrosssucks.com/consumer.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn59v48fPHc
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/was-fr...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnBbuezFKg8&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4k9KixVHwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vURLnggKtps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLLVhneIBTc
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/your_story
http://www.sickofbluecross.com/consumer_stories/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a33_1245701809
http://www.revolutionhealth.com/forums/hot-to...
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/H...
Should I go on? I can't believe you actually asked for that proof. Would you like me to prove that the Holocaust happened or that the earth isn't flat while you're at it?
There was nothing there that had anything to do with a free-market.
"Implement it over decades?" And Bill moyers has this imbecile on his show? When is Bay Buchanan going to show up?
Why do we have to ween the corporate welfare billionaires off the taxpayer teat over the course of decades. Whenever they screw the poor or working people, they can pass the goddamn fascist reforms retroactively.
We are in the advanced stages of corporate fascism in this country. I fear that a 2nd Civil War may be required to dispose of these evil corporate SOB's.
“I fear that a 2nd Civil War may be required to dispose of these evil corporate SOB's.”
Maybe what is required is a massive turnout in the primaries, where people are currently apathetic, and at which point, the deck is stacked with a corporate lackey.
The phrase "decade by decade" was intended to mean "extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35" ..
The French did something like that when they introduced Universal Health Care in the late 1800's, only they started with infants (thereby insuring their health and the health of their mothers) and gradually extending the age bracket as those kids aged.
The US needs Health Care for infants and their mothers more that it needs MediCare for us old guys.
If we want to "phase it in" that's the place to start.
"The French did something like that when they introduced Universal Health Care in the late 1800's"
I'd say they're way ahead of us, don't you think?
Nails it right on the head!!!
"We are in the advanced stages of corporate fascism in this country."
Exactly what I've been trying to say. The writing is on the wall. It's like sitting at a table putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Gradually a picture begins to emerge and NoGWBpolicyleft... is right about what it shows:
Corporate fascism. The "F" word. Webster's Ninth definition: "a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition."
Corporations control Wall Street. Corporations control the White House and Congress (because they eat capitalism for breakfast, lunch and dinner with a little more of a "profit" snack before bed). Corporations control all the media (which is why "some" websites won't allow discussions of "certain" subjects...like 9/11). Corporations control our election process (Diebold), the major parties, the Presidential Debates, gerrymandering districts through their paid for "servants" in order to keep their incumbent puppets in office. Corporations control the military industrial complex. There are more corporate (Blackwater "Xe"/Halliburtan) mercenary soldiers on the U.S. tit now in Iraq than our own "military".
It goes on and on.
Now we are in the throes of a health care "debate" where the pharma/medical insurance corporations are in the thick of all the meetings because they OWN the Congress. Both parties. They're not even coy about it. The facts are out for everyone to see.
The way it appears to me when I look at the puzzle picture is that we have the corporations, the Congress and the main stream media involved in a criminal conspiracy to commit fraud upon the American people in order to bilk us out of what little money we have left either through forcing us to pay private insurance corporations for insurance or to take our money through a penalty/fine when we can't or WON'T purchase their "for-profit" medical insurance.
This group of co-conspirators do NOT care about the American people's HEALTH. They do NOT care if we are socially secure in our jobs or homes. They do NOT care if we go bankrupt. But they don't mind lying to us about torture and illegal wars and 9/11.
They don't care if we live or die.
And that's why we are not hearing all of our elected leaders on the teevee attempting to explain the TRUTH about what the so-called "Public Option" would actually mean to the average American. Either they are too stupid to understand it themselves, or they are purposely lying to us or they are afraid to come home and face us with the truth about what they are actually considering doing to us.
Dirty, rotten scoundrels one and all.
Wall Street and Corporate America have destroyed the public's equity (investing-equity etc) and now they want people to pay for a health care plan . . blah blah blah how can we screw thee let us count the ways.
for healthcare. They want you to pay for insurance. That isn't healthcare. How healthy do Americans get paying their car insurance and house insurance?
and what good is Universal or Single Payer if we're still investing in fraud, waste, inefficiency, horrible quality, and procedures that still cost a kings ransom?
“... they want people to pay for a health care plan ...”
We're going to pay. The question is how much. Do we want a system that grabs 1 in 5 dollars, or a system that grabs 1 in 9 dollars?
This whole notion that we don't pay for things, that we borrow in perpetuity, makes no sense to me. Apparently, our national debt is no longer being financed at treasury auctions, at least not completely. Instead, the Fed is engaged in "quantitative easing", where they electronically "print" money, and acquire treasury securities. If we don't pay directly, we'll pay through dollar devaluation. But, we're going to pay one way or another.
Maybe we need to change that attitude . . to, "we're not going to pay one way or the other"
Wouldn't that be fun.
I pay by forgoing wage increases. Plus, I pay with increased employee share of premiums, increased deductibles, and increased co-pays, now being revised to co-insurance payments.
say here's how we're going to lower costs of medical procedures, medicines, hospital stays, etc with this plan so you, employers, and we the government can afford to get our bodies fixed up without going bankrupt.
Well, you're not going to hear him say anything because that implies reducing corporate profits. And that is "off the table".
Where are the anti-competition laws? How is it we have had so much legal conglomeration of insurance companies to the point we have this statistic (real or imagined, I'm not sure) that 94% of the country is serviced by oligopoly insurance?
What about combing through state regulations and finding the state that has the best insurance regulation to price ratio? And then normalizing the laws at the federal level, blow away the state laws, and the feds come up with funding for the states to continue regulating but based on federal law?
If we had competition, prices would fall. It's pretty plainly obvious that insurance companies would fight this, even if it is a "free market" solution.
I'm all for a public option, but I'd like to see Obama and Democrats force Republicans and Blue Dogs to put up or shut up when it comes to capitalism. Break the monopolies, normalize the regulation.
The only competition they want to see is in labor. They want American labor competition with 3rd world labor.
Ideally, you move to the 3rd world, so we can get American labor at 3rd world prices.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/ibm-to-...
And one guy said flat out, "You can't socialize 20% of the economy." Why not? Other socialized industries, roads, postal service, schools, etc., don't exist in a financial black hole. There's plenty of money churning through areas, just as there will be through government run health care.
Has anyone else noticed that the price of a first class stamp has less than doubled in 20 years? That's the potential price savings of a universal, subsidized industry.
if they didn't have a driver bring them into work and take them home everyday. They're complete shit for brains over there. (Lou Dobbs over at CNN too. I'd like to see his fat ass cross Columbus Circle for a walk in the park without tripping over his shoe laces.)
just said that a congressman is a real expert on the health care debate. Of course he is one of the blue dogs. Expert is going to be the key word for the talk shows for the next month.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/do...
Do Baucus' Ties To Health Care Industry Compromise His Reform Efforts?
...
Take a quick glance at the website Open Secrets and you can find over a half dozen insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists who were once Baucus staffers.
To name just a few:
* Roger Blauwet, Baucus' tax counsel, who now lobbies for Merck, Wyeth, and other pharmaceutical interests
* Jeff Forbes, Baucus' former chief of staff, who represents the interests of several pharmaceutical companies
* Scott Olsen, a one-time Baucus policy adviser, has been a lobbyist for Amgen since 2004.
* Melissa Wier, Baucus' former chief trade counsel, who lobbies for Assurant and Ace Limited insurance companies
experts on framing the subject in their favor and bilking the working class out of any disposabloe income. I'm still waiting for the CIGNA guy to hit the Sunday talk show circuit. He was a real expert on how the insurance companies screw us.
To bad they are not as good at representing us IN government, as they are at representing their corporate overlords out of government.
Bribocrats, every damn one.
private practice medicine so Doctors can manage their own business and be efficient and charge what they need as well as create their own payment plans without outside interference?
easy, de-regulate. That will allow others to create new and improved supply, thus increasing competition and lowering costs. Most of you want more "government" interference when the answer is to get "government" the hell out of the markets.
we all know how well that has been working. Isn't red state missing you?
Do you know of a market without "government" interference?
I won't pretend to speak for anyone else, but I want the fucking markets out of health care. Health is not a widget subject to the laws of supply and demand.
health is not a widget, but the subject is health care and health care is a product just like a widget is a product.
Health care may be a product, but it is NOT like a widget.
You can price widgets. You can bargain for the best price, or look for a sale. You can decide to buy a new widget, or maybe a "gently used" widget, or maybe just fix the widget you already own instead of replacing it. Maybe you can use something else instead of the widget. Or if you can't afford a widget at all, you can just hold off and wait for another time to buy that widget.
Just try plugging "chemotherapy" or "heart surgery" in place of the word "widget" and see how well the scenario still works.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinrevie...
Including Government. This is the problem.
Another problem is that doctors need to be salaried. But the AMA won't have that. By god if someone has their head bashed in in a car accident that neurosurgeon should be able to make off like a bandit. It's only right and proper. The outcome should not matter. Diabetes? We should continue to subsidize the sugar, and processed foods industries, while people get FAT off bad food, and wait til they have diabetes until there is a PSA (in this case PRIVATE service announcement, to the individual) before"health care" kicks in. GREAT!
Kudos to the schools that have made soda machines illegal to put into schools. And fuck all the schools who have put in soda machines to make more money, you goddamn drug pushers!
"we really have not had a vibrant discussion about other possibilities."
"in the Netherlands, where there are private payers"
"What's really happening there?"
And C&L authors posting their personal editorialization pushing single-payer, as if only single-payer is the solution. Story, after story with this "single payer" business and "public option" business as the ONLY viable solution. None of these authors actually understand what they're talking about. They certainly do demonstrate what they personally do not like and find abhorrent.
Thank you Susie Madrak for finding this story and posting it. WE DON'T KNOW SHIT. And what we should be doing is educate ourselves and demand a better system. Doesn't matter if it's single payer, or multipayer, public or private. We should be having an ethical debate about how it's OK to make everyone pay for wars, but somehow it's not OK to make everyone pay for real health care. We should be debating health care as a term compared to sick care which is what it really is. All of the options should be on the table.
The problem is Americans are too fucking stupid with their goddamn TV and entertainment syndrome to even consider critically thinking. Don't have time to think, gotta go be entertained...la dee da...
into old age.
Sex is for the young and glamorous, not the old and ugly. We need a generation that can be serious and STOP FUCKING AROUND! And now look at what we've got. OLD people, fucking around instead of doing the only thing they're good for. Being serious!
Of course it's part of the insurance company scam to cover viagra, to distract old people with sex. Talk about obvious.
off with the Viagra.
Do you know how many 75 year old men have been found dead in their beds as their 30 year old sex bunnies scampered on down the road in their Benz's? (Cause God knows their 74 year old wives don't want to have sex with them!)
75 year old tickers (except for Cheney's maybe) aren't meant to go at razor sharp speed for two hours at a time....or more.
For all its puritanism when it comes to Janet Jackson's nipple, the United States sure is tolerant to constant 4 hour erection warnings on their teevee.
“None of these authors actually understand what they're talking about.”
They understand this. We're paying too much. And Ross Perot said years ago, study the systems abroad and copy the best one. That was "off the table" in favor or finding an "American" solution, which means find a way to continue paying much more for health care than in other countries. Studying the systems abroad and copying the best one needs to be put on the table.
Thinking about it further, we could study the systems abroad and copy the worst one, and probably we would still be doing better than the status quo.
"Bada-bing!!!"
Not only are we paying too much, but Americans are universally more fat, more lazy, exercise less, and eat more shit food than their counterparts who have better health care.
Why we're paying too much is not merely about the insurance companies getting their cut. Doctors are paid way way more here in the U.S. than in other countries. That's why the AMA is dead set against anything talking about salarying docs. They still want their pay-to-play program, and thus far the option on the table gives them that. Medicare still pays out that way too.
We're paying too much because of ignorance and bliss across the board, not just being scammed by insurance companies (who then turn to state governments, write legislation that sounds good for consumers but then acts as barriers to entry for competitors). Crooked business and crooked government.
And you guys think that if we don't clean THAT up first, that it's a good idea having the government be a single payer? Operating health care? I don't. We've got some serious house cleaning to do as a part of having national health care.
And if we have a public option, managed by the feds, will that entity be subject to every single one of the states' myriad rules and regulations? I bet you not. So if the federal program should be exempt from state laws, then why not open up the entire playground to everyone on a national level?
“We've got some serious house cleaning to do as a part of having national health care.”
That means getting rid of the politicians who are currently writing health "reform". It isn't going to happen because the 4th estate has been co-opted. They know full well that if they can control what people see and hear, they control what people think and say.
But, notwithstanding that, I would rather take my chances with Medicare for all (HR 676). I don't think we have the element of time some people think we have in resolving health costs. If we don't fix it, kiss the economy goodbye. The economy may be going bye-bye anyway, but not reforming health care will hasten its demise.
when we waved at the jobs on the cargo ships as they left on that cruise to third world counries.
OK fine, the country is technically already bankrupt with all the IOUs we issue each week in order to pay the bills and keep the lights on in the country. BUT expanding Medicare, as is, without reform, will bankrupt the country. It does nothing to control costs at all. It adds no requirement for for-profit outfits to even accept Medicare. It does not alter the very concept of health care to include incentives for keeping people healthy, by including prevention to the program. It does not salary doctors.
It's completely unworkable. And there ARE worse options than what we have now, which is a plan that reduces costs just enough that we buy into it, and yet all the players still in the system are walking away with way more than they are worth, with a 10% discount. Well, sorry, but a 10% discount on largess is still high way robbery. We shouldn't feel good about a 10% rebate on being robbed.
Obviously a mechanism, probably payroll taxes would have to be set up to pay for H.R. 676. The savings would come from the elimination of insurance premiums.
We pay 16-17% of GDP now for health care. There would be a net savings, provided that the costs were less than that 16-17% of GDP.
From what I understand, about 3% of GDP would be saved on administrative costs savings.
But, you're right - controlling costs necessarily means reducing corporate profits, and that is off the table. Essentially, HR 676 is off the table also. We're left with the status quo or this lobbied health "reform" bill.
Thing here is, we do have 50 million uninsured. I'm interested in what happens to them. (And by way of disclosure, I have health coverage, and retirement health care locked in.) I want these people covered. That little segment I saw on 60 minutes about cancer patients being denied chemotherapy because of no insurance is a national disgrace. We have no business paying the exorbitant sums we pay to play the world's policeman when people are dying at home due to lack of medical care.
The one thing I find frustrating about Obama is his ability to clearly state the problem, and then avoid the solution.
"And you guys think that if we don't clean THAT up first, that it's a good idea having the government be a single payer?"
Yes - run it like Medicare. Cleaning up the government could take decades - we don't have decades. I wonder if the time we have should be measured in years, or months.
I'm trying to educate myself by reading this GD 1000 page draft reform legislation the Democrats are busy trying to cram down our throats....
Thanks.
(snark...)
Between the giveaways to the Status Quo and Obama backing off and saying the Senate can recess in August without passing any reform, they've blown in. Much as we all suspected they would. The Republicans continue to obstruct and the Democrats continue to waffle spinelessly, but don't be fooled. Both sides do what they do to serve their lobbyists. We live in the United States of AINO (America In Name Only) and the more I open my eyes, the more I see that this has been the case for quite some time. We do not live in the country our Founding Fathers envisioned.
I will always be a Progressive Liberal, but Democratic Party be warned: I don't have to be a Democrat to be a Progressive.
Honestly, people should be more than a little alarmed over all of this. It is proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that both political parties are in collusion, but not in a good way. Sort of like the oil companies conspire to rig prices.
Moyers' guests knew exactly what they were talking about. This has been a rigged game since single-payer advocates were not invited to the meetings.
The whole health reform farce had as its prime objective, that of protecting corporate profits. That necessarily meant that any costs for covering the uninsured come from the rest of us.
of the rest of the Democrats, are on the take.
What I predict will happen is we will get a shitty bill, that will get the buy off of all the big players who have the money to spend on what a great bill it is, and the corporate media will say it's a huge win for the Obama administration which is what they need to get everyone of us to STFU. If Obama gets "the big win" in name only, that will be enough to make this whole thing go away. But ultimately it will be a shitty bill.
I concur with everything you just said.
See subject :/
If they were really serious about fixing healthcare as to access for all Americans they could set-up care at University Hospitals in a better managed way than is the case at this present time.
Having access to these teaching hospitals would be one way to address the current problem. As is the present case already, many people already use public university hospitals for their care anyway.
Building up this system and expanding care at teaching hospitals by extending similar services in small communities could be one way to address the problem.
I am not saying it would work all the way, but, it's one way to address the problem.
I also think that they should be building upon the Medicaid/Medicare models rather than replacing them with untried programs which may not work. Medicaid and Medicare work just fine when financed properly.
The bottom line is dollars--if there is lack of funding for these new healthcare measures and all they are going to do is cut Medicare-Medicaid to make room for this untried system, than all will lose here. I do not like the idea of getting rid of Medicare/Medicaid to make room for this so-called new plan.
I never liked Obama's healthcare plans during the campaign. Obama did in fact say he would be getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security during the campaign. He in fact said those programs would be looked at and changed if necessary. He did talk about private plan options for Social Security. Obama also praises Reagan a little too much for me as well. Reagan was a slash-burn guy who went to war with all things public including unions and teachers of America.
If these politicos backed by the global-corporate elite want to fix healthcare it would be done. I am not convinced that healthcare reform in the way it actually works for the better of all is going to ever come to fruition.
Americans do not like change. Americans complain a lot but are fickle to the max. In this healthcare plan, though, it is good to be skeptical because they are more than dragging their heels. I do not think they want it to work and the final plan will be rationing. The "rationing part" which has been pointed out by Republican partisans has also been said by other analysts critical of this "healthcare plan."
“I do not think they want it to work and the final plan will be rationing.”
Right now, health care chases 1 in 6 dollars. I expect by the end of 2010, it'll be 1 in 5 dollars, and as more baby boomers age, 1 in 4 dollars. For cost reasons, sooner or later, rationing will be on the table, since reducing costs through single payer is off the table.
At that point, expensive treatment to prolong the lives of terminally ill people by a few weeks will be questioned.
And what do you do with a couple of cases I see in my office. These are people who are morbidly obese, one can't walk anymore. They have diabetes, and heart conditions. We pay thousands for the bypass operations, the gall bladder removals and so forth. When not on FMLA, they are actually pretty good workers. But, I see eggs and bacon for breakfast, chili or wings and fries, or quarter pounders with cheese and so forth for meals.
How much should we be paying for the fallout of obesity when the root cause, diet, isn't being addressed? Maybe health care dollars need to be chasing 1 out of 2 dollars, but sooner or later, these issue of rationing are going to come up.
everyone else pay for it, while you do not change your lifestyle AT ALL, is The New American Way. We are not responsible for our own person anymore.
This will be like triage on a very large scale. There will be rationing. But so long as docs are not salaried, and the insurance monopolies are not broken up, those who have better insurance will not be rationed. They will get the services. Even if they are terminal. Even if they are obese and refuse to do anything about it other than take pills. (I would consider someone who refuses to alter their lifestyle to become healthier, is actually terminally ill and we shouldn't pay for anything. They're on their own. Triage.)
The New American Way isn't that far off from the Old American Way. In my childhood (pre-McDonalds), we ate fried foods at hamberger stands, or the fancy Friendly's. And when food was fried, it was fried in the good stuff - LARD. We ate candy like you wouldn't believe, and yet me and the neighborhood kids were mostly thin. Back then, the question of whether Johnny can read was applicable.
But now, with childhood obesity on the rise, the question has become "Can Johnny see his own dick?".
I think something has changed in the food. Lifestyle can explain a lot of it, but my feeling is, it doesn't explain all of it. I don't know if it Monsanto frankenstein food, or excessive soy depressing thyroid function, or hormones or whatever, but I think something has gone wrong with the food. I hear about early onset of puberty, and I wonder if what is causing this early onset is also related to obesity.
I think you can watch the whole thing on YouTube or get it on Netflix.
It's very well made, loaded with data and very entertaining.
We. Are. Corn. (Think high fructose corn syrup...it's in EVERYTHING).
I haven't seen the movie, but I've heard of the corn issue. I think someone was on Colbert report talking about it. But my focus is on what is causing the early puberty. I don't think the corn is it, or the antibiotics given to corn fed cattle. Some guy here says "I thought all the soy/plastics/phytoestrigens were causing the puberty issue".
I know that soy can negatively affect the thyroid in some people. And soy, as an underlying ingredient is pervasive in foods, particularly in soup. I don't know an awful lot about the plastic issue. In my day, you put out your old milk bottles, and the milkman replaced them with full ones.
There are probably a multiplicity of causes for the obesity increases.
According to the article cited below, the US Government could have purchased (in November, at least), lock stock and barrel, six of the major players in the health industry for something less than seventy billion dollars.
Why not simply buy up all the shares of the interested parties at a reasonable strike price? "NATIONALIZATION!" will be the shriek heard from the right, but it should be evident that the most efficient solution to the health care problem is for the Government to expropriate the entire industry, consolidate and unify it under government control, and "spread the risk" and cost of universal health insurance across the entire population.
(http://industry.bnet.com/healthcare/1000217/h...)
It's like eminent domain. We're still paying fair market value for it, but we are in fact taking it. Not a hideous idea at all...
It's like Iraq. We didn't go steal the oil. We're took what we want, but we paid for it. (OK we paid more than market value for it, nevermind.)
But yeah it's not going to happen because even if thugs are in the minority, they're still thugs. There's no way it will happen. The rich own enough Congress critters to effectively run the country.
I appreciate these kinds of ideas.
But you know, the only problem I have is that I remember almost to the day when insurance companies moved in and took over my health care. The promise to my employer was that the insurance company could "do it more efficiently and inexpensively."
It was all a big lie, because we now know that they are in the business of denying health care.
If I had my preference, it would be to declare health care a right, and make it illegal for health care insurance companies to make a profit on defined basic health care, which included dental, mental, all physical, visual, and any other health care I am forgetting at the moment.
Anything above and beyond a defined, universal, and excellent package can be the scraps owned by the health insurance corporations.
In other words, we owe them nothing, including a fair market purchase price for the empire they concocted.
While I don't disagree with the idea of health care being made a right (and you're correct to point out it isn't a right, or at least isn't explicitly codified to be a right; at least not yet), there are consequences to this.
I understand "basic health care" but exactly what things are part of health? It means different things to different people. How do we go about triage with limited resources? And it is a fact there are limited resources. So if it's a right, we have a huge problem, suddenly, trying to ration (or triage) those limited services and products to those who will get the most benefit. Because the only thing under discussion right now is a huge increase in demand for services, because the numbers of people covered will instantly go up on the first day of coverage. Yet the capacity will not immediately go up. Not for a decade, or more.
And if health care is a right, is it only the right of U.S. citizens? Or is it the right to anyone who happens to be in the country? We have a much bigger problem with illegal immigration than do "socialized" countries who have universal health care. You get into those countries as a tourist rather easily but if you want to get a job in Canada, or Switzerland, or Australia is is VERY difficult, and you don't just sneak in. It's a lot easier to get into the U.S. So who is covered? Who is not covered?
And if non-citizens will lack coverage, does it get extended to those who are legal immigrant workers paying taxes? So then it's a privilege for those who pay taxes, not a right? Or only a right bestowed if you pay taxes?
What about malnutrition? Is that a covered health care problem? I think basic nutrition is a "right" that comes before what we conventionally call health care. So now we have to feed people, as a right.
I think this is highly problematic to completely dispense with self-reliance when it comes to basic needs. I think in some ways we should be looking to the not so distant past to solve these problems before we had mega insurance companies. And look to the future in eliminating pay-per-procedure medical practice which incentivizes testing and procedures that may not be necessary.
I think we need more basic education in school on this front too. Kids go to school for 12 years (hopefully), and it's glorified baby sitting. It does not take 12 years to learn so little.
Health care is defined by the country that offers it. Just like the Constitution defines our government, Congress will define health care, and it will be representative of the needs and wishes of its people.
You ask a lot of questions. My paragraph above should answer all of them.
Wendall Potter warned us about "charmed defense". Aside from my name on this blog, I have no association with the health care industry, the health insurance industry, or pharmaceuticals.
You?
No you haven't answered any of the questions I asked. And the assertion that Congress will define healthcare that represents the needs and wishes of its people is totally laughable. We've been having this debate for more than 1/2 a decade and yet here we are. People want better, but are easily manipulated by scare tactics, entertainment, and high fructose corn syrup.
I have no association with any company in health care or related industries.
...but the main problem America faces in the transition between systems, not in the system itself if it is PROPERLY implemented. The worry is it will be completely bastardized and twisted by special interests and 'too many cooks in the kitchen'. Knowing America that's a distinct possibility.
I did some research on Canada's single-payer system. It totally KICKS THE CRAP out of America's healthcare. America has two, maybe three things superior in it . #1. Faster response times. #2. Better record in dealing with cancer. #3. (maybe) more medical innovation.
However I feel the pros are totally crushed by the cons. -
American health care costs TWICE as much. That's HUGE.
Canadians do have access to private healthcare, but it is 30% of the system, so American media have glossed this over and lied about it. If Canadians have to wait too long for treatment they DO have the option to pay for it. Therefore if they can't afford it they are screwed in EITHER system, however, they will eventually get treatment in the Canadian system...they won't in the American system. I'm guessing there are far more horror stories in America.
To me the 'waiting' problem is moot. Why? Because no matter the spam you've been given by the media, you will still have the option to pay in a new system, and get instant care. But if you can't afford it, in the current system you are screwed, in the Canadian system you will always have a chance.
Every Canadian is covered. They have a higher recovery rate for disease, a higher life expectancy, they have higher rated hospitals, they have cheap cheap drugs, they have far better infant mortality rates and superior healthcare outcomes.
We're comparing the 37th healthcare system to the 30th healthcare system. Where does this 'America has the best healthcare in the world' BULLCRAP come from?
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