BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 01:52 PM

I think Doug missed a "not" out of the second line of his last post, which made nonsense out of the sentence. Surely "and is eligible for a government health care plan that I, because I am not yet 65, am not eligible for.
...........

I think we fall into a trap when we treat discussions about real issues on the Mudcat as arguments to be won or lost, or as attempts to convince particular people, or efforts to demonstrate that we are not convinced.

We would do better to use them as opportunities to collaborate with others, including people who start with very different views from our own, in sorting out what we as individuals do actually think, and in trying to reach some common understanding of where the truth lies, or where the actual differences lie.

Doug's initial post here seemed to indicate that that was what he was after here.   But it isn't really how later posts have achieved.
...................................

I'm still hoping that someone who thinks that America is uniquely incapable of doing what everyone else has done, providing universal health care, will explain why that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 02:26 PM

Well, I shall try to explain some of the obstacles...

And I am all for universal health care..hopefully without destroying what already exists and instead of 40 million uninsured we have 300 million in a great big mess...but that seems to not be the way they are going and hopefully they will work on the 40 million people plus first and leave what is working somewhat in place while they fix what is not working. But I like the magic wand option the best still.

We are a country almost strangled by laws and legalities and lawsuits.

We are a country that talks about education a lot but for the most part does not prepare students for practical careers, and that is where the health care people should be mostly coming from.

We are e pluribus unum...which means we are not a more or less homogenized society..quite the opposite. Universal anything is easier if people are more or less on the same page.

We have a history of government inefficiencies and if you look to the VA as a guide..boy, have there been some horror stories.

The very foods that are killing us -- transfats, stuff made out of corn oil -- are often the ones that are subsidized. We also are financially addicted -- due to generations of poverty -- to wheat, which many many people of Northern European extraction are very sensitive to..less so for people of Mediterranean extraction. We don't have really a history across the board of good nutrition but instead..especially in the last say 3 generations..of shelf-life foods and junk foods.

We have a lot of violence to contend with which adds to emergency room costs etc. Adds to stress of life, adds to not getting outside for exercise and sunlight. Makes it harder to shop for healthy foods as grocers do not want to be in high-crime neighborhoods.

We are way way overmedicated -- if you saw the lists of what medications people are on you would faint -- at the cost to them or society and to the costs in health terms -- and now they are getting into the water supply etc. I think this mostly happened around WWII --when massive doses of some medications saved many many lives from war injuries, infectiosn etc...but we never really got the dosing down.

We are giving people very bad medical advice, particularly diabetics...they have been told for generations to eat huge amounts of carbohydrates when their bodies do not handle carbohydrates in large amounts. This leads to a lot of the heart problems that really increase medical costs.

We are religious about food and dairy products and meat etc. and instead of getting nutritional advice and information, people are given philosophies of food, which are important but separate from the nutrition of food.

We do not want to spend enough money on food, especially animal products and dairy. We need much better animal husbandry, as almost anyone would agree, and we need to shift some of the unemployed population into working with animals that feed us. There are so many animal lovers who could be working with dairy goats, rabbits, ducks etc., who would rather work at a little dairy than at a desk..

We are a sedentary population sitting under flourescent lights.

We are a stressed out population -- generations of war, fairly high unemployment in some areas, residuals from the horrors of slavery.

We have our native population in reservations and in poverty situations quite often. That does not seem to be the case in France or other places. There are very huge health problems sometimes, with alcohol being a major problem, changing from native diet to SAD (standard or substandard American diet).

We have a couple of generations of people who have perfected the art of obstacling things instead of building things and fixing things. Someone interviewed some men from the WWII generation and one thing the said about us boomers, who were younger then, was that we didn't really know how to build anything, but were good at putting up obstacles. Lots of red tape. Lots of endangered species stuff. Lots of rules for people to sort out. All of it good, but it is hard to get stuff done.

We do not let people at the ends of their lives die naturally but keep them going and this accounts for a lot of health care costs.

Multiple births -- huge medical expenses for premature births. There should be laws regulating the number of implanted embroyos..like 2 max and if someone is infertile, that is their cross to bear..and we should not be paying for ocuplets etc.

Breakdown of family. Single parent homes. More stress, less money, poor housing and food options.

Loss of family farms is probably in their somewhere.

Well, that is all for now. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 02:32 PM

This country is able to bail out terminally ill banks and businesses to the tune of trillions of dollars—which the executives of those banks and companies (who screwed them into the ground in the first place) then use to vote themselves raises and bonuses. This country is able to spend trillions of dollars on military expenditures, such as the F-22 fighter program, which the Pentagon says it neither needs nor wants (not to mention a couple of totally needless wars). And if I wanted to take the time, I could list a whole page full of similar boondoggles,, but I leave that to anyone interested as a valuable exercise. If the bribe-takers in Congress were to grow some honesty and integrity (not to mention a few brain cells) and reallocate some of this wasted taxpayer money to where it is needed and will actually do some good, this country might just join the rest of the civilized world.

I just heard part of a radio interview this morning, but I missed the guy's name. He said he was recently in Denmark and talking to a group of conservatives there (opposed to much of the Danish political system and their tax-funded social programs). He asked them if they would prefer a health care system which is funded by private insurance companies, like the United States has.

They all answered in horrified voices, "Are you crazy!???"

There you have it.

Don Firth

P. S. Of course, that traveler's comment can be totally dismissed on two counts:   first, it's anecdotal; and second, I didn't hear it on Fox News, I heard in on my local NPR affiliate.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 03:16 PM

Doug's initial post here seemed to indicate... trying to reach some common understanding of where the truth lies...was what he was after.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 04:23 PM

Quite a catalogue from mg - but a lot of those things are also true of countries where successful universal health provision has been set up and maintained by governments of all political colours, so I wouldn't depair.   

As Don Firth's anecdotal evidence indicates, by now there is nothing left-wing about universal health cover. In fact, as that Conservative Party website I quoted pointed out, it can be seen as an expression of fundamental conservative values - "The NHS is an institution which binds our nation together.

Things move on, and yesterday's crazy extremist ideas become bedrock conservative principles. After all, it isn't so long since universal suffrage was seen as a dangerous left-wing policy. Or the notion of having a republican form of government.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 04:31 PM

Well, lets try that'un agin:

Doug's initial post here seemed to indicate... trying to reach some common understanding of where the truth lies...was what he was after.

I should think his subsequent posts quickly & definitively put the lie to that idea. As ever.

That's not what Doug is about at all, not how he operates. Nor has it ever been, as a review of his posting history ever since he first appeared on this forum amply demonstrates.

But for some reason, he's able to keep suckering people in again & again & again...

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 04:47 PM

So? "I think we fall into a trap when we treat discussions about real issues on the Mudcat as arguments to be won or lost, or as attempts to convince particular people."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 05:08 PM

I don't have time to dig up the experts I mentioned just now. I'll do it when I get more time.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 05:22 PM

I don't get your point, McGrath- we should let Doug's preposterous & pernicious spew go unchallenged in the spirit if conviviality?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 05:45 PM

My point is that the basic point of a discussion is to discusss the issues. PLay the ball not the man.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 06:28 PM

Excellent idea!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 06:34 PM

I think that falling into "playing the man" occurs most often when one has repeatedly presented overwhelming evidence for one particular position, and a person who has taken the opposite position either fails, or stubbornly refuses, to acknowledge the evidence and persists in even more aggressively advocating their own position, which has been shown time and again to be completely untenable. It's often a bit hard to keep from becoming exasperated, and expressing that exasperation by calling the person's intelligence or integrity into question.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: pdq
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 08:25 PM

Carol C,

The people who analyzed ObamaCare and said that it would cost trillions of dallars more, not less, was the Congressional Budget Office. They are supposed to be independent although top members were appointed by Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 09:41 PM

There is no such thing as "Obamacare". What the heck are you talking about? More Fox News/Limbaugh BS.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 09:43 PM

And there's also the point that while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they're not entitled to their own facts.

Doug should have that tattooed in reverse on his forehead, so as to be able to read it in the mirror as he shaves every morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 09:43 PM

It looks to me like it's really up in the air as to whether is would cost more or less. The age old issue of "who pays," seems to be at the bottom of the resistance. If nothing is done, however, American firms will have to compete against other players around the globe who's government pays the freight.
               They won't survive!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 11:56 PM

The people who gave out the figure of a trillion dollars were talking about an incomplete early draft of a proposed bill. It did not include quite a lot of very important and relevant information and features that, when included in their calculations, will produce a very different figure. The whole point of sending that early draft was to get a projection from that government agency of how some of the features of the early draft would impact the cost. It was not a final version and it didn't look anything like what either Obama, or the Democrats in the House and Senate have been proposing.

Here is one expert who says that health care reform as proposed by Obama will reduce the deficit, whereas not taking care of the problems that Obama's proposal addresses will cause the deficit to increase. I've seen others and I'll post them as I get time...

David Cutler is Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2009/05/health_modernization.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 01:17 AM

Here's some background on the CBO estimate...

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/June/18/CBO.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 11:59 AM

Carol C: Thanks for the blue clickies, particularly the one to the Kaiser Fund. It seems there has been a great deal of friction between Peter Orzsag, former director of the CBO, and Douglas Elmendorf, the current director. Elmendorf, it seems, is taking a much more conservative position on the results of the CBO evaluation of the draft plan submitted by the Senate committee than Orzsag is. It was this evaluation that sent the senators back to the drawing board.

Don Firth: Mudcatters, at times, confuse "evidence" with opinion.

McGrath: yes, you are correct. I left "not" out of the sentence.

Greg F.: you have no idea whether or not I shave every day. I might have a beard that reaches down to my waist.

Charles Krauthammer's column in today's edition of the Washington Post suggests a plan to correct the current ills of our health care program. It won't be considered, of course, because he suggests it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 01:01 PM

It was never intended for the draft sent to the CBO to be the final version. That's the whole point of sending things to the CBO. Their function is to go over the mumbers of various ideas and give their feedback so the lawmakers can shape law that will make economic sense. Those who are using the CBO report as proof that Obama's health care proposals are too expensive are being very dishonest, since the CBO report was in reference to an imcomplete bill. There were aspects of the overall approach that Congress is taking and that Obama advocates that were not included in the draft bill that the committee in question sent to the CBO that, when included, produce very different results.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 01:16 PM

People aren't going to reject his ideas because he's Krauthammer (although I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, myself). They're going to reject them because he advocates taxing people for the money their employers contribute towards their health insurance. That one will never be accepted by the majority of people who get their health insurance through their employer.

His proposal also doesn't do a thing to solve the problem of people not being able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions (which includes age, by the way), and it also does absolutely nothing about insurance companies denying their customers needed care in order to maximize their profits. So those who don't have access to health care or who are being ripped off by their insurance carriers will never accept his proposal eiher. Those two groups represent the majority of people in this country.

Krauthammer's proposal doesn't do a thing to help the uninsured and the underinsured get access to health care, and for this reason, his proposal would not do a thing to correct the increase in the deficit that is caused by the inefficient method of health care delivery we have in this country now.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 01:35 PM

Carol C: I think you must have read a Krauthammer column that is different from the one I read. I believe his proposed program addresses all of the concerns you believe are ignored. For example, why would object, as one who is not insured, to the government giving you a grant to purchase a policy from the insurance company of your choice?

It appears to me that you will not be satisfied with any plan other than a single payer one. Is that correct?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 01:54 PM

""For example, why would object, as one who is not insured, to the government giving you a grant to purchase a policy from the insurance company of your choice?""

Great Doug. The government gives you a grant to buy insurance from one of the many rip off merchants who will sell you a policy which denies you treatment in the event you get sick.

That'll help.....NOT!

The whole point, in case it hasn't penetrated yet, is that everybody GETS health care, rather than a long list of reasons why they are INELIGIBLE.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:15 PM

This is the one I read. If there's another one, I would appreciate a link to it...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080602933.html

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:17 PM

...and no, I am not pushing for single payer, and I would like to see what posts of mine would lead anyone to believe that. I would be very happy with the plan that Obama is proposing, which is not single payer. I do want there to be a public option, but even the public option is not single payer.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:23 PM

Forgot to address the one about not accepting money from the government to purchase a plan of my choice.

The answer is that because of my age and pre-existing conditions, there are no insurance companies that are willing to insure me for a price that I can afford... even if the government gives me a tax deduction.

What's so goddamned difficult to understand about what I have been repeatedly saying about how I can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions? Tell me that! How many times does something have to be repeated until it will penetrate into such a brainwashed mind?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:28 PM

Charles Krauthammer's column in today's edition of the Washington Post suggests a plan to correct the current ills of our health care program. It won't be considered, of course, because he suggests it.

So why didn't the last administration sort things out during all the long years in which it was in control? Could it possibly be that they didn't it to be done? And in opposition they still don't want it to be done?

Sixty years since the NHS was set up. Plenty of time to work out and introduce a more acceptable way of achieving the same goal in an American way, if that had been what was actually wanted.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: pdq
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:29 PM

"... I would be very happy with the plan that Obama is proposing" ~ CarolC

You and artbrooks have both said that there is no health care plan yet. That is why the finantial impact cannot be evaluated.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: pdq
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 02:40 PM

"American voters, by a 55 - 35 percent margin, are more worried that Congress will spend too much money and add to the deficit than it will not act to overhaul the health care system, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. By a similar 57 - 37 percent margin, voters say health care reform should be dropped if it adds "significantly" to the deficit.

By a 72 - 21 percent margin, voters do not believe that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to overhaul the health care system without adding to the deficit, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University national poll finds.

American voters disapprove 52 - 39 percent of the way President Obama is handling health care, down from 46 - 42 percent approval July 1, with 60 - 34 percent disapproval from independent voters. Voters say 59 - 36 percent that Congress should not pass health care reform if only Democratic members support it. …

Only 21 percent of voters say the plan will improve the quality of care they receive, while 36 percent say it will hurt their quality of care and 39 percent say it will make no difference.

The big number here is the independents.  Democrats got elected by splitting independents away from the GOP, especially in the 2008 presidential election and the 2006 midterms.  Despite their insistence that opposition to ObamaCare has been cooked up in RNC laboratories and transmitted through people wearing Brooks Brothers suits, the 26-point gap with independents shows that Democrats are alienating the very constituency that keeps them in power.

Voters in the Quinnipiac poll support elements of ObamaCare, but not the cost.  For instance, they support mandates on businesses to supply insurance by a 54%-38% margin, and respondents also like the idea of a public plan by almost a 2-1 margin.  They strongly oppose individual mandates to carry health insurance, 68%-26%, a key part of ObamaCare that achieves universal coverage by making it illegal to be without insurance of some kind.

Obama has more demographic problems than just independents.  Women now oppose Obama on health care issues, 49%-41%, a 17-point swing since July 1st.  Young voters, in this poll defined as 18-34 year olds, oppose Obama on health care 48%-44%, a 23-point swing from their 54%-35% support a month earlier.  Low income voters swung 12 points and now oppose Obama on this issue 47%-43%.  When populism starts failing among the young and the relatively poor, who will buy it at all?"


{I wonder if Obama will order the American people to stop reading the Quinnipiac Poll. Perhaps order the Fairness Doctrine involked so a poll he likes better can have equal time.}

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 03:00 PM

"Don Firth: Mudcatters, at times, confuse 'evidence' with opinion."

True indeed, Doug. Your referring to the "Cash for Clunkers" program as a "fiasco," for example, was pure off-the-top-of-a-conservative-head opinion with no basis in fact. The program has been spectacular success, and that's not an opinion. Individual buyers are getting a good deal all the way around, the environment will benefit, it will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the automobile companies are getting a much needed stimulus, and the dealerships in particular (many of which were in danger of having to close and lay off their employees) are being saved from extinction. And the program is not costing the taxpayers that much, especially when you consider that the auto companies, the dealerships, and their employees will now be able to continue paying their taxes! And today's news said that the program has proven so successful that it's going to be re-upped. Now, I'd say that's hardly a "fiasco."

I might point out (fasten your seat belt, you might find this ride a bit bumpy!) that the idea 0f putting the money in the hands of people who will spend it right away, as opposed to giving it to company heads who merely squirrel it away and/or give themselves salary raises and bonuses, was one of the fundamental principles of FDR in an effort to help people directly, while at the same time, stimulating the economy during the Great Depression, when he created agencies that would hire people for specific projects and directly pay them a salary—which they would spend right away because prior to the program, they were jobless and often homeless and hungry:   I'm sure you're familiar with the WPA (building roads, bridges, infrastructure in general that we still use today) and the CCC (cleaning up the environment and tidying up parks and recreation areas, which we are still enjoying today). It helped millions of people, needy through no fault of their own, and it went a very long way toward bringing the Depression to an end.

Given the right leadership, the government can do a pretty good job.

Conservatives don't like to acknowledge that. But it isn't opinion, it's history.

Don Firth

P. S. By the way, I also heard on this morning's news that half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to expenses engendered by health care problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 03:47 PM

I didn't say there is not plan yet. I said that the version of the bill that was sent to the CBO was not complete. Those are two entirely different things.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 03:52 PM

It's getting ugly out there:

    * Last night in Tampa, Florida, a town hall meeting erupted into violence, with the police being called to break up fist fights and shoving matches.
    * A Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wing hecklers, many of whom admitted they didn't even live in his district.
    * One North Carolina representative announced he wouldn't be holding any town-hall meetings after his office began receiving death threats.
    * And in Maryland, protesters hung a Democratic congressman in effigy to oppose health-care reform.


Sources:

1. "Tampa Town Hall On Health Care Reform Disrupted By Violence," The Huffington Post, August 6, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51727&id=16748-8293565-KhFG0nx&t=3

2. "Local Fox Reporter Attends Town Hall And Finds 'Some Attendees Admit They Don't Live In The District,'" Think Progress, August 4, 2009
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/04/gene-green-townhall/

3. "Dem Congressman's Office: His Life Has Been Threatened Over Health Care Bill," Talking Points Memo, August 5, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51724&id=16748-8293565-KhFG0nx&t=4

4. "The Danger Over the Right's Anger," Politico, August 3, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51726&id=16748-8293565-KhFG0nx&t=5

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 03:59 PM

Gallup: Majority in U.S. Favors Healthcare Reform This Year

Harris: Majority of Americans want a public option

Majority of small businesses in New Hampshire want health care reform (this is a sentiment that is shared by small businesses all over the country).

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: pdq
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:17 PM

The text of the bill is the only thing that matters. Period!

What people think is in the bill doesn't change anything. What people want in the bill doesn't seem to matter either. "The People" aren't writing the bill, lawyers and political activists are writing it.

Small business owners and doctors do not support what they have heard so far. They are not even part of the decision making process.

If the bill is so good, why won't Obama & Co. explain things better.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:29 PM

"As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.

Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.

The centerpiece of all the plans is a new health insurance exchange set up by the government where individuals, small businesses and eventually larger businesses will be able to purchase insurance from private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition. Low-income workers buying insurance through the exchange -- along with their employers -- would be eligible for government subsidies. While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.

There is still a vigorous debate as to whether one of the insurance options offered through those exchanges would be a government-run insurance company of some sort. There are now less-than-even odds that such a public option will survive in the Senate, while even House leaders have agreed that the public plan won't be able to piggy-back on Medicare. So the probability that a public-run insurance plan is about to drive every private insurer out of business -- the Republican nightmare scenario -- is approximately zero.

By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.

First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.

Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.

The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.

While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control." (Washington Post)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:36 PM

The text of the bill that is being considered at this time contains elements that were not presented to or considered by the CBO when it made its report.

It's true that some members of Congress aren't listening to their constituents. Those are the ones, like the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats, who are working on behalf of the Insurance industry, and are ignoring the wishes of the majority of people.

And it's absolutely true that many small businesses want Obama's health care proposals to succeed. They are being crippled by the costs of providing their workers with health care and for those who can't afford to, they are not able to compete with companies that can afford to. JtS and I are small business owners, and we are definitely in favor of Obama's proposals, because as small business owners, we don't have acceess to health care ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:37 PM

And doctors also support it, as does the AMA and the major nurses associations.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:37 PM

Don T: I never said that the government should not force private companies to accept people with preexisting conditions or prevent enrollees from being dropped because they become sick after enrolling. That could be done through legislation by preventing private companies that participate in Medicare and Medicaid from doing so. There may be other inequities that could be handled the same way.

In regard to Cash for Clunkers, I suggest you Google, "The effect of Clunkers on the Environment", an article printed in Newsweek magazine, hardly a paragon of conservative thought.

Carol C: I guess we both read the same column and arrived at different conclusions.

Our discussion re Single Payer: So I'll rephrase my question. Would you, Carol, be satisfied with a health care plan proposed by the Democrats that did NOT have a Public Option?

On statistics: Did you read PDQ's post today at 02:40 PM?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 04:43 PM

Oh, and kat, there were outbursts at similar meetings relating to the War in Iraq during the Bush administration. I never heard complaints from liberals who viewed such "outbursts" as acts of patriotism not disruption.

I don't approve of rude outbursts at meetings about either subject just as I do not approve of rude posts on the Mudcat, but, we still have freedom of speech in the U.S., right?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 05:02 PM

I would probably settle for a bill that contained a strong co-op option, if there were provisions that would strengthen the co-ops so they couldn't be demolished by the for profit insurance industry as co-ops in the past have been.

Please show me which parts of Krauthammer's proposal addresses the problem of people not being able to get coverage because of pre-existing conditions (and also people who are able to buy insurance, but whose pre-existing conditions are not covered), and please show me the part that addresses the problem of insurance companies withholding needed care from those they insure in order to increase their profits.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM

Why are current public opinion polls etc that relevant anyway? You've just had a general election in which an overwhelming majority was given to the side that promised to bring in a scheme providsing universal health coverage. That means the current administration has a mandate to push ahead with that.   

Fluctuations in public opinion are interesyting as indications of what might possibly happen next time there is an election, but that's all. The promise made to the electors on which they voted in November still stands as an obligation upon the administration.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 05:40 PM

McGrath: I'm sure Obama and members of his campaign staff would agree with you. However, campaigning is quite different from governing. Politicians make promises during a campaign that even the candidate knows will not become law. Sometime it does, often it does not. True, a president who wins an election by as large a margin as Obama did, plus gaining large majorities in the House and Senate should assure that the winner gets most of the legislation he wants, but it does not always work out that way. Immediately after the election, Obama had very high personal approval ratings. As he began to govern, approval ratings began to slowly start dropping, but over the past few weeks they have dropped a bit faster. Why? In my opinion it is because the DETAILS of the health care plan Obama promised during the campaign became more understood by the electorate and, so far, the majority of voters don't like what they hear. A large percentage of voters, who before, and during the campaign found great fault with their health care plan and though an overhaul of the system would be desirable. After hearing the details of Obama's plan, they are beginning to believe that their current plan is not so bad after all.

It is possible that Obama and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate might push through winning legislation without Republican help. There is even a legislative procedure that they could use (and might do so) but that's a bit risky. All members of the House of Representatives face re-election in 2010, and some Senators do. They are reluctant to pass a Bill that could cost them their seat in 2010 or 2012.

That's my thinking anyway.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: pdq
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 06:27 PM

...just for the record:


Barack H. Obama:         69,498,952         votes or          52.87%        
John S. McCain:            59,949,402         votes or            45.60%

That is victory margin of 7.27%.

That means if 3.635% had change sides, we would have had a tie.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 06:33 PM

52/45 in these times is a friggin' landslide...

As for co-ops... I'd like to see how they would be structured... If they are like "assigned risk" pools where people are dumped into the for-mega-profit private insurance muti-billion dollar scam, I'd have to take a pass... Unless, of course, the government can regulate the heck out of such a co-op... Like it's operating costs and profits...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 07:28 PM

""I never said that the government should not force private companies to accept people with preexisting conditions or prevent enrollees from being dropped because they become sick after enrolling.""

This is without doubt one of the most disingenuous responses I have ever received.

When, Doug, did you EVER hear of a government, ANY government, forcing a large corporate entity to do ANYTHING?

You have YOUR healthcare covered, so why would you want to contribute one bent penny to the care of those less fortunate?

It is sad to see a whole nation so lost to compassion as to refuse to countenance supplying lifesaving care to those less fortunate.

Gandhi was right when, in response to the question "What do you think of American civilisation"?, he replied "I think it would be a very good idea".

It is the attitude of yourself, and people like you who elicited that response, and it IS a justifiable response.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: bobad
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 07:32 PM

This is the kind of stuff people who want more equitable health care in the US are up against:

Rush Limbaugh "Obama Health Care Logo Is Damn Close To A Nazi Swastika Logo"

You have my sympathies.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 07:32 PM

Before I receive the usual screams of outrage, let me emphasise that it is Doug's attitude, and NOT Doug himself, to which I am objecting.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 07:32 PM

I see the poster who has said Krauthammer's proposal will fix the problems of people not being able to get insured because of pre-existing conditions and the problem of insurance companies denying needed care in order to increase profits, can't provide the parts of the proposal that are supposed to address those problems. I'm not surprised because they're simply not there.

I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that it's not just an "I've got mine and to hell with everyone else" attitude of such people, but that it's also a deep seated need to see Obama fail, and they just couldn't give a crap how many people have to die as a result.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 07:54 PM

I read the Newsweek article, Doug. I'm afraid your citing of that to prove your "fiasco" assessment of the "Cash for Clunkers" program is a bit disingenuous. I never said that it would solve all the country's economic woes, nor has anybody else. But—the program is helping. Granted, not much, but as they say "a nickel here and a dime there tends to add up." No single program instituted by FDR during the Depression did that either. But a combination of programs did. It's called "synergy."

Daniel Stone's article (I presume that's the one you're citing) begins, "The popularity of Cash for Clunkers is, by now, undeniable." And then he starts trying to pick it apart. "Negligible" is a word he uses a lot. But that is opinion, Doug. An opinion not shared by the auto companies, the dealerships, and all the employees who will not be laid off and add their numbers to the unemployment roles. And that can't help but help the economy. And the environment. Not much by itself, but at least it's better than doing nothing but whining.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Aug 09 - 08:03 PM

Jus can't pass up 500..