[Winstonm]

Quote

the disgusting orchestrated behavior of the protestors at the town hall hearings prompted me to view some of the ongoing "discussion" of the issues on Fox News.

I could only watch about 10 minutes at a time before I became violently ill.

You have hit on one of the best solutions to lower health care costs in the U.S. - banning Fox News would go a long way toward restoring sanity. Of course, this would never happen as the loss in revenue to the pharmaceutical companies that make drugs to treat mental illnesses would prompt a rapid response by "Americans for the Right to Stay Crazy" a right-wing think tank sponsored as is just so happens by Rupert Murdoch.

[Lobowolf]

Winstonm, on Aug 12 2009, 06:22 PM, said:

Quote

the disgusting orchestrated behavior of the protestors at the town hall hearings prompted me to view some of the ongoing "discussion" of the issues on Fox News.

I could only watch about 10 minutes at a time before I became violently ill.

You have hit on one of the best solutions to lower health care costs in the U.S. - banning Fox News would go a long way toward restoring sanity. Of course, this would never happen as the loss in revenue to the pharmaceutical companies that make drugs to treat mental illnesses would prompt a rapid response by "Americans for the Right to Stay Crazy" a right-wing think tank sponsored as is just so happens by Rupert Murdoch.

This has been a Public Service Announcement from the Concerned Citizens for Freedom.

Shame about the big-pharma conglomerates. Oh, and that pesky First Amendment.

[PassedOut]

Winstonm, on Aug 12 2009, 06:22 PM, said:

banning Fox News would go a long way toward restoring sanity

Now, now, Winston! Surely Fox News and any other news has the right to try to persuade folks.

The right way to counter them is to have a good position on the issue and to sell it better than their side does.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Shame about the big-pharma conglomerates. Oh, and that pesky First Amendment.

Couldn't agree more. Kill the First Amendment. I for one am thankful Bush and Cheney saw fit to rid of us of that awful Bill of Rights thingy and Obama has been wise enough not to overturn those great statesmen.

I say if you are a Patriot you should Act like one and sacrifice your rights for the good of profits.

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on Aug 12 2009, 07:03 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Aug 12 2009, 06:22 PM, said:

banning Fox News would go a long way toward restoring sanity

Now, now, Winston! Surely Fox News and any other news has the right to try to persuade folks.

The right way to counter them is to have a good position on the issue and to sell it better than their side does.

Interesting take on the role of the news - an organization utilized to sell an argument.

Whatever happened to reporting news?

[PassedOut]

Winstonm, on Aug 12 2009, 09:28 PM, said:

Interesting take on the role of the news - an organization utilized to sell an argument.

Whatever happened to reporting news?

Fox News: Okay, I see your point. Maybe they could be charged with the offense of false labeling...

[kenberg]

Short story followed by a quiz:

Story:

I have a rash, I saw the doctor, he sent me to a dermatologist. ("We have specialists who could examine that. We call them dermatologists"). The derm looked at it for 30 seconds or so, asked if I had prescription drug insurance and when I said yes he wrote a prescription for a tube of lotion and gave me a coupon that gives me $40 off the price. I got the stuff. It turns out that w/o the coupon and the insurance, the price of one tube of lotion is $250. A cynic might note the clever pricing strategy. If they sold it for $210 but no coupon I would need a copay on the lotion and I might object. But at $250 the insurance pays $210 (or more ) and the coupon covers the rest. So the total price to me for the doctor, the specialist that they call a dermatologist, and the tube of stuff was $0. I am happy, at least if it works.

The quiz: Never mind what you think should happen. I ask, under your understanding of Obabma's plan:

1. Can every guy in the US, if he gets a rash, see two doctors and get a $250 tube of lotion for free? If yes, please comment on how the cost of medical care, including the cost to the government, will be reduced.

2. Or will, instead, it be decided that at $250 a tube we can all live with our rash or at least make do with cheaper ointment? If so, how will this improve health care?


3. Or will I still be able to get my freebies because I am a really nice guy but others can buzz off?


4. Or will the government decide that $20 is plenty for lotion and tell the drug companies to buzz off?

5. Or what?

Remember, the question is not what you believe should happen, the question is what you believe is intended under the Obama Healthcare Plan. No joke, I am not sure of the answers here (except I imagine that the answer to 3 is no).

[Al_U_Card]

Faux News specializes in editorializing and presenting a viewpoint concerning current events.

Reporting of the facts? PBS comes close with a leftward liberal lean to it. Papers, radio etc. since the time of Hearst and before, the advertisers call the shots and they are invariably the corporatocracy.

With CGI seeing is no longer believing.

You have to be smart and work hard to get a clear view of the situation. No one is going to make it easy for you but they will certainly bias and obfuscate according to their whim and requirement.

Faux gave new meaning, during the Bush-Cheney era, to the term "Rove-ing" reporters.

[awm]

To answer Kenberg's questions:

1. No. There are different levels of health care plans. Presumably you have a very good plan. Someone with a very minimal health care plan would have had some co-payment at some stage in this process. Obama wants to make sure everyone has a health care plan, but he isn't providing everyone with this level of coverage.

2. Decisions are not being made "for everyone." There will continue to be many different health care plans. The reforms are based on making these plans more transparent (so everyone has a choice and knows what they are getting), mandating some minimal level of coverage (probably would not cover free $250 rash ointment), and creating a fairly minimum "public option" plan to keep the insurance companies honest. It will remain the case that people with good insurance plans (paid for by themselves or their employers) will get this sort of thing covered whereas people with lower-end insurance will have to pay some money (but not the full costs).

3. You still get your freebies. Other people don't. Of course, in the long term the structure of insurance coverage may change due to increased competition.

4. The government will not make these decisions in most cases. The government decides the minimum level of coverage allowed under law (probably does not totally cover $250 rash cream) and also the level of coverage in the public option (again, it's supposed to be pretty minimal, so probably will not cover the full costs here). Private insurance plans will remain, and can charge more in exchange for more thorough coverage. Medicare coverage presumably will not change much either.

The idea is that in the current system, health insurance companies often have effectively local monopolies. It is hard for an individual to tell what the options are (in many cases there are not a lot of options). They are not really competing with each other on the open market. Further, large groups of people (such as a big employer) can negotiate good deals whereas individuals or small businesses trying to buy in get screwed. The plan is to create a government-sponsored forum where health insurance companies could be compared effectively and where people and small businesses could form groups to get better deals, and also to provide a government-run plan to help break up monopolies and drive the private companies to lower administrative costs. Note that the plan doesn't really make health care "better" for people who already have insurance -- the goal is that quality of care for people with insurance stays the same, but that cost of insurance is driven down (for everyone, but especially for people buying insurance on their own) and that certain unfair and/or deceptive practices in the insurance industry are curbed.

[kenberg]

Adam,

I think Mr. Obama should put you on the payroll and in charge of clear explanations. I often understand things through taking some specific real life experiences and asking how/if this would change under proposed reforms. Of course lotion for a rash is not very dramatic but I have had good health so it's the best example I can supply from my direct experience. A far more dramatic example kept me from most of the nationals, but it was someone else's heart not mine that was involved. The care was very good and very successful, and I would not want to see anything changed in the way it was handled.


Mr. Obama of course assures us that all will be well. Skeptics know that "the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away". If Mr. Obama's team can get away from reacting to claims that they will be shooting grandmothers and get on to calm explanations of actual issues then they may well be able to pull this off. Cost issues very definitely need to be addressed openly. I understand that the CBO analyzed an early draft and announced that the costs would not be quite as contained as advertised. I think some serious people are addressing this and we need to hear how it is going.


Ken

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on Aug 13 2009, 06:10 AM, said:

Adam,

I think Mr. Obama should put you on the payroll and in charge of clear explanations.

The healthcare reform is of great interest to me, so I've been paying attention. From where I sit, Obama has been very clear about what he wants congress to do.

To get the concise form, I listen to Obama's easy-to-find weekly addresses: The White House. To get more details, I read transcripts of his town meetings: Obama’s Health Care Town Hall in Portsmouth.

Whether congress will pass the legislation Obama wants remains to be seen. But congress will have let the US down big time if they fail to get it done.

I also note that Stephen Hawking was in DC yesteday: Stephen Hawking Defends Health Care in Britain.

Quote

Mr. Hawking — who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on Wednesday — responded to the editorial this week, telling The Guardian newspaper, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the N.H.S. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

Fortunately he lived in the UK, where he got the treatment he needed. Had he been born in the US, the world might have lost this brilliant man long ago.

[kenberg]

I went through the Portsmouth reference, most of it anyway, and it left me uneasy. I had trouble putting my finger on exactly why, but a Post article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ST2009081301797
that helps me get it straight.

In the Portsmouth article the president goes on about Medicare. His initial comments don't seem to amount to much but on page 7 we find:


THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, another myth that we've been hearing about is this notion that somehow we're going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay? So I just want seniors to be clear about this, because if you look at the polling, it turns out seniors are the ones who are most worried about health care reform. And that's understandable, because they use a lot of care, they've got Medicare, and it's already hard for a lot of people even on Medicare because of the supplements and all the other costs out of pocket that they're still paying.

Now to the Post article, discussing some work on a possible bill:


In the Senate, where the Finance Committee is painstakingly crafting the only bill that has a chance to win support from both parties, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) announced that his bipartisan working group had come up with a plan that would save the government money by 2019. With Congress in recess, the "Gang of Six" finance negotiators will probably continue to meet next week via teleconference, a Finance Committee aide said.

Baucus has declined to release details. But people involved in the talks said the plan would make more than $500 billion worth of changes to Medicare over the next decade, charging wealthy seniors more for prescription drug coverage, cutting $120 billion in payments to private insurance companies that serve some seniors and trimming projected payments to hospitals by $155 billion in an effort to spur efficiencies.


This is merely a sample. I could give similar examples with, say, cost and scope. What I get out of this is that no one, not you, not me, not Mr. Obama, knows what will be in the bill that reaches his desk. This is not a settles issue. Mr. Obama's explanation of "The Plan" is more a recital of a wish list. It is not possible to say what the bill will or will not do or will or will not cost because it is still in the ether. That's OK, but it's not OK to call concerns about the effect on Medicare a "myth". I realize the Baucus approach may not be the one favored by Obama, but as the CBO report of a while back makes clear, Obama may not be able to reconcile everything in his wish list while staying within budge constraints.

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that there will be a bill and that Mr. Obama will sign it. The ex-governor of Alaska might wish to have the tribute "effectively killed health care reform for the foreseeable future" as something that she can put above the fireplace next to the moose heads, but others would want no part of such an honor. Better to have "worked across party lines to get a bipartisan bill through the House and Senate and then signed by the President". This is a tribute that first and foremost a guy can tell his grandchildren about, but it can also be the basis for a very strong political career.

So I will place my bet: We will have a bill. Even more, I suspect I will like it (but not love it) when I see it. But I do not think any of us have seen it yet.

[cherdanno]

Its hard to tell what is happening to health care in the finance committee. From what I can tell Baucus is desperately trying to find get a bipartisan consensus, but while at least some of the Republicans he is negotiating with (Grassley) have interest in negotiating, but really no interest at all in advancing a bill and eventually voting for it.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on Aug 14 2009, 08:50 AM, said:

Baucus has declined to release details. But people involved in the talks said the plan would make more than $500 billion worth of changes to Medicare over the next decade, charging wealthy seniors more for prescription drug coverage, cutting $120 billion in payments to private insurance companies that serve some seniors and trimming projected payments to hospitals by $155 billion in an effort to spur efficiencies.


This is merely a sample. I could give similar examples with, say, cost and scope. What I get out of this is that no one, not you, not me, not Mr. Obama, knows what will be in the bill that reaches his desk.

All true. I'm going to end up paying more in taxes and (probably) in copays than I do now. And, as I've said before, I certainly disagree with Obama's "tax cuts for the middle class" instead of asking for sacrifices from everyone.

But this has to get done, and I subscribe to Obama's insistence on not making the perfect the enemy of the good. No way would this congress simply pass a bill written by the white house at Obama's direction.

So we certainly need to keep the focus on what congress does with healthcare reform to keep them honest (so far as is possible).

[PassedOut]

Obama's Death Panel Claims First Victim

Quote

In a shocking foretaste of what we can expect from socialised healthcare, evil Kenyan-born "president" Barack Obama today publicly strangled a distinguished disabled physicist. "Professor Hawking's quality of life did not meet the assessment criteria laid down in subsection 6 paragraph 3b of the Life (prolongation of) regulations", a White House spokesman explained. "As a British citizen, he had in fact been looking forward to this for many years."

"This is not the America I gave up governing Alaska for. Hell no!" said Sarah Palin, giving her reaction on Facebook this evening.

[With photo of the killing]

[PassedOut]

Here is Nicholas Beaudrot's flowchart explaining who will be affected by healthcare insurance reform as things stand now: Health Insurance Reform in Three Easy Steps. As this plan takes shape, I hope we can get a bird's-eye look at costs too, both of the proposed changes and the status quo.

[kenberg]

President Obama has totally lost control of this debate. Unless he does something dramatic, and does it quickly, health reform is done for. The folks who think Obama wants to shoot their grandmothers, or worse the folks who show up at meetings armed with rifles, are beyond redemption. Forget them, they will not be changing their minds or open to serious discussion about what needs to be done. But Mr. Obama has to get past slogans and short explanations. The flow chart presented above does nothing at all for me and I expect others react similarly. David Ignatius, in the Post today, has a suggestion, namely to bring in Dr. Denis Cortese, the chief executive of the Mayo Clinic, to help get things moving in a sensible direction.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1


I know too little to say that I completely endorse the suggestions of Dr. Cortese. I am no expert on the issues and I do not plan to become one. But the issues put forth in the column, presumably accurately reflecting the views of Dr. Cortese, make sense to me.


The health care "debate" that we are having is an embarrassment to the country. Sarah Palin is an idiot, the people that come to meetings armed are beyond any rational explanation, but the supporters of reform have to move beyond rebutting idiots and psychotics to get this moving again. Perhaps Dr. Cortese could do the trick. Someone has to.

[helene_t]

What Cortese says makes a lot of sense.

[PassedOut]

Thanks for the link. As I've mentioned before, I've had experience with the Mayo Clinic and know that it delivers fine medical care very efficiently. It's always a pleasure dealing with those folks.

And it certainly is necessary to make the current medicare program and the other federal programs more efficient, along the lines that Dr. Cortese recommends. Obama counts on those efficiencies to help pay future healthcare costs, as he keeps saying.

In fact, Obama gets plenty of heat for that, too ("Keep the government's hands off of my medicare," was one memorable quote), because change is a scary thing to many people.

But it's also crucial to get coverage for the currently uninsured. Those folks often delay treatment until an expensive emergency arises, and the costs for that treatment are borne by us all. As Obama keeps pointing out, preventive care must be covered and will produce important savings over time (and not just for the currently uninsured).

Asking Obama to explain every detail of a program that is still being negotiated is, in my opinion, unrealistic and unfair. I note that opponents of reform operate under no such restrictions. In fact, healthcare opponents like to pick out tiny parts of draft proposals and mischaracterize them in a way to stir up fear of change.

If Obama had the power to dictate the healthcare legislation himself and force the congress to pass it, we'd have a better program than we are actually going to get. But that's not the way things work. As things stand, the white house has to push congress to enact a program that will get enough votes to pass -- including votes from democrats and republicans whose primary interests have little to do with fixing the US healthcare disaster.

Yes, Obama needs to do a better job of cutting through the *****. He clearly underestimated the amount of ***** that right-wing hacks would throw to prevent him from accomplishing what must be done to get the US back on a sustainable track. But ***** is *****.

Obama is absolutely right that healthcare in the US must be fixed. His program will go a long way toward that goal, although congress will undoubtedly water it down under pressure from idiots and the unscrupulous. But it will be a necessary first step. Deficiencies will have to be addressed in the future, maybe when Obama starts a second term.

[Winstonm]

Quote

The health care "debate" that we are having is an embarrassment to the country. Sarah Palin is an idiot, the people that come to meetings armed are beyond any rational explanation, but the supporters of reform have to move beyond rebutting idiots and psychotics to get this moving again. Perhaps Dr. Cortese could do the trick. Someone has to.

I am reminded daily that I live in the heart of the "Bible Belt", which would be better renamed "Suspenders for Idiots". In my little town's semi-weekly newspaper was a report of a town hall meeting held by Senator Coburn in nearby Jenks, Oklahoma.

Here is what the report said,

Quote

"A crowd of 750 people packed the Jenks High School auditorium....

Welcomed by a standing ovation and interrupted several times by applause and shouts of "amen", Cobern spent most of the more than 60-minute session answering questions ranging from healthcare to campaign finance to questions about the citizenship of Pres. Barack Obama."

Yes, the idiotic rumor/urban legend that Obama is really not American and was born in Kenya is still making the rounds among the various right-wing pseudo-Christian talk shows like the 700 Club - and then they try to breath life into legend by repetition. Why am I reminded of the saying credited to Goebels that if you tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough it will become truth, and why do we allow these pea-brained numbskulls who believe this crap to have any influence over our lives? The intelligent majority simply needs to stop allowing these idiots to hold sway over necessary reforms - quit arguing with people who couldn't spell GOP unless you spot them the G and the O and get onto the business of healthcare reform without them.

There is no benefit to compromise with idiots.

Here is a Glen Greenwald comment I thought too funny and too accurate not to share although not directly related to health care reform:

Quote

Huckabee knows that the Republican base lives in its own alternative, insular reality and any unpleasant or negative facts can be waved away not by refuting them, but by attributing them to the work of "the liberal media."  His denial is totally incoherent and substance-free -- it just tosses around the word "lie" and "left-wing press" without addressing any of the evidence I cited -- but in the warped right-wing cocoon he inhabits, that is all that is necessary to dispense with facts.  That's why roughly 30% of the country lives in its own world and possesses its own set of realities.