Every now and again, I include something up in a blog post, hoping some supporter or critic will catch it and build on it. Last night, I did just that, linking a Washington Post/ABC News Poll, to help set up this post. One of our critics noted that the poll, which i cited in order to show that an overwhelming percentage of Americans are happy with their health care, also showed “over half still think the system itself still needs reform and/or alteration.”
He’s right. While most people are happy with their current health insurance, many do want reform. But,just because people support reform doesn’t mean they support the reforms proposed by the Democrats. And yet, all too many supporters of such plans believe that those who oppose such plans do nothing. (That said, I, along with a majority of Americans, believe doing nothing would be better than passing the plan currently in Congress.)
Even when free market advocates outline reforms they favor, albeit reforms different from the Democrats’ proposals, Obamacare advocates say such libertarian entrepreneurs are trying to “kill reform.”
The basic point is that we have a pretty good system with some rather serious flaws. We also have the problem that about 15 million people who lack coverage but would like coverage. (Yes, Democrats do put forward a higher number, but they include many who are eligible for coverage but don’t know about it or who opt not to have coverage due to their youth and/or general good health.)
We don’t need a general “overhaul” as President Obama (and his supporters) often say, but we do need to “mend” this system. The guiding principle for our elected officials should be how to reform a system while preserving all that is good about it–all that makes so many so happy with the coverage they now have.
‘…reform a system while preserving all that is good about it–all that makes so many so happy with the coverage they now have.”
Which is exactly what Obama is proposing. Its why being able to keep the insurance that you have, if you like it, has been a central feature all along.
The right has consistently pretended that Obamacare is a far larger reform than it actaully is. That has been necessary, since ginning up fear -about supposed “government takeovers”- is a central tactic in effort to hand Obama a political defeat. Which is the driving motivation fo the propagandists of the right.
Well, then, they should be able to do that in fewer that 1,000 pages of gobbledygoock where the government defines what an “acceptable” level of coverage is.
Which is exactly what Obama is proposing. Its why being able to keep the insurance that you have, if you like it, has been a central feature all along.
No, it’s not.
You see, if you like the coverage you have now with the exclusions and exemptions you have now, you can’t keep it — because Obama intends to ban exclusions and exemptions.
If you like the coverage you have now where you get discounts for not smoking, for weight loss, and so forth, you can’t keep it — because Obama intends to force you to pay the same amount as do obese smokers.
And if you prefer to have no health insurance, you can’t keep it — because you will be mandated to pay for health insurance or fork over a direct penalty to the government.
So there are three lies right there from Barack Obama.
Furthermore, if all Barack Obama wanted to do was to create a “public plan”, i.e. an insurance company that rejected no one, that rationed no care, that didn’t charge any money, and that didn’t take an additional dime of taxpayer dollars, he could do that simply.
However, such a plan would completely collapse in a heartbeat because it couldn’t compete with private insurance. Obama needs to handicap and destroy the private insurance companies to get his goal of completely socializing medicine, and that’s exactly what he is doing.
Meanwhile, the three biggest cost drivers in the system are as follows:
— Out of control tort liability claims, both in terms of legal costs, malpractice insurance costs, and defensive medicine costs
— Over-regulation of insurance at the state level, resulting in lack of competition in local markets and pointless mandates for coverage events that most people will never use, i.e. sex-change operations
— Government’s refusal to pay actual market rates for health care services offered through Medicare and Medicaid, resulting in additional costs being imposed on those who opt not to carry insurance and those on private insurance
So fixing the system is far easier.
— Cap malpractice lawsuits and initiate a loser-pays system, i.e. do the same as the UK, Canada, France, Germany, and other countries with socialized medicine
— Eliminate state insurance coverage restrictions and mandates; allow health care plans to be sold regardless of state and on a menu basis where people choose the coverages they want and at what level, similar to car insurance
— Require the government to pay actual market rates for services and for Medicare to be self-sustaining on premiums alone, with no expense-shifting to other Federal departments.
No, Tano, sorry but you are wrong. You may keep your existing health plan for 5 years. After that time, the insurance company and it’s plans must “qualify” with the government (read: Pelosi) in order to provide continuing benefits. Read the small print, Tano.
Yes, I agree we must mend health care, but not with Obamacare. My thoughts:
1. Remove from businesses the burden of providing health benefits for employees. It costs businesses too much money for the additional staff to shop for, negotiate, and administer health benefits. Under current practice, if a business selects a plan which will meet all the health care needs of all their diverse employees, it becomes prohibitively expensive. On the other hand, if the business selects a plan more affordable, it simply cannot meet the needs of the employees. Allow businesses to do what they do best.
Instead, allow individuals and families, regardless of their employment status (including students, unemployed, part-time, etc.), to shop for and buy the benefits package which more closely suits their own health care needs. Premiums should be tax deductible. Businesses currently enjoy tax deductible status, but individuals don’t.
2. Make all health care benefits Portable. If an employee moves from one company to another, or if he is self-employed, or if he works only part-time, he should be able to keep his health care benefits plan. This will minimize the preexisting conditions delimma.
3. COBRA premiums should be no more costly to the individual than the cost to the employer. In the longer term if my suggestion were adopted, COBRA would not be an issue.
4. And finally . . . TORT REFORM! Trial lawyers are the greatest contributor to high health costs, but has anyone noticed the DEMS savaging trial lawyers for the staggering cost in our system? Of course not, silly! It’s always the insurance companies!
I believe these simple reforms would go a long way toward solving the present situtation, without the need of government socializing our excellent medical system.
QUESTION: If Obama is successful in pushing through his Public Option, will trail lawyers be allowed to sue? How about class action?
just can’t spell today . . should have said Trial Lawyers
#6: “QUESTION: If Obama is successful in pushing through his Public Option, will trail lawyers be allowed to sue? How about class action?”
I hope your question isn’t directed at Tano or one of the other Obama-bots that frequent this blog because such a question is sure to baffle them. They are convinced beyond reason that Obamacare WILL deliver premium healthcare on demand to every man, woman, and child in America, every day, 24/7/365, including preventative care for all, and elective surgeries like abortion and sex-change operations, without delays, AND at a lower cost. Why would anyone ever have to sue anyone under such a program? So, your question is only going to confuse them.
For those of us that live in the real world, your question is an excellent one–one of the multitude of questions that have not been answered by this Administration. All I know is that when government is in charge of a service, there are ALWAYS statutory immunities that apply to protect the government and its employees from lawsuits. Of course, those immunities don’t apply to private healthcare providers and you can take them to court all day if they screw up. But if the “public option” gets passed and the government is in the business of making decisions to grant or deny care, then the tort immunities that already exist will most certainly apply to protect the program and its employees from liability.
I’ve asked Tano before… Obama, Frank, and numerous other Democrats have stated in clear and concise terms on many occasions that their goal is single-payer so were they lying then or are they lying now?
I believe little of what these folks say but, on this, I take them at their word.
The solution is simple (IMHO) – reduce the reliance on third-party payers for routine care and make health insurance like all other insurance: coverage for unexpected loss.
Just think what car insurance would cost if it covered oil changes, tire rotations, and routine repairs.
Side note: interesting story on how some VA bureaucrats worked to provide excellent services to our vets at a low cost:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/policy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219400889
For me, congressional attempts to kill the HSAs are *the smoking gun.*
Take a successful program that does not rely on government largess, is entirely self-controlled, portable to any of these fifty great states and any job therein, works irrespective of pre-existing conditions and has the highest rates of customer satisfaction…. And yet, this program MUST BE PURGED according to Reid and Pelosi.
They don’t care about Healthcare.
They don’t care about costs.
There is really no other reason to kill these provisions except what the critics suspected all along: they really hate freedom and they really love wielding power. This is the most naked attempt to seize power in my lifetime.
Best wishes,
-MFS
#10: “There is really no other reason to kill these provisions except what the critics suspected all along: they really hate freedom and they really love wielding power.”
MFS, there are several examples of things that Obama and this Congress have done where the objective facts lead to only one rational conclusion: that Obama and his crew are vile, power-hungry hypocrites. For example:
Obama de-funding the wildly successful DC school vouchers program while somehow finding trillions to spend on other worthless government programs. This, along with his statement that “we can’t turn our backs on the public schools” and then promptly enrolling his daughters in one of the priciest and most exclusive private schools in the nation, proves beyond any pathetic spin he has to offer that he is a despicable elitist and a shameless hypocrite. While he and Michelle were getting their kids ready to start school at an institution with tuition comparable to that of Ivy League Universities, the parents of some of the minority students in the voucher program were making videos of themselves BEGGING Obama not to send their children back to the DC public schools. Only then did he relent and allow funding to continue until the students presently in the program could graduate so that their parents would shut up and stop embarrassing him. As for the DC children who would have benefitted from the program, well, they are stuck with the hellish nightmare of the DC public schools.
Obama pledging $2 billion of taxpayer funds to support offshore oil exploration by Brazil’s state-owned oil company (in which George Soros has a stake worth $811 million). Obama did this, despite the fact that he: (1) supports the moratorium on drilling offshore on US coastlines; (2) is opposed to drilling in ANWR; (3) condemns US oil companies for “obscene profits”; (4) preaches non-stop about the virtue of developing renewable sources of energy to replace our dependence on fossil fuels; (5) has cap-and-trade at the top of his list of agenda items which will punish businesses into extinction for their carbon emissions; (6) has unequivocally identified climate change as a serious threat to human survival (and claims to agree that man-made carbon emissions are to blame); (7) incessantly whined about the destructive influence of corporate money in Washington and self-righteously declared his rejection of any such influence during the campaign; and (8) during the campaign promised $2 billion in loan guarantees to an American company developing renewable energy and later reneged (rendering the $1.5 billion already spent by the company on the project a waste).
These are just two examples of FACTS that conclusively prove Obama to be the exact opposite of what he claims to be. There is simply no spin or excuse to mitigate these travesties. Furthermore, it vindicates those who view everything Obama says and does with suspicion. For anyone who claims to value character, integrity, and honesty in our leaders, either one of these two examples should be a deal-breaker when it comes to supporting Obama. People who continue to support this man in light of these facts simply confirm what we already know–that liberals categorically reject the application of objective moral standards to themselves or their political leaders.
Sean:
You’re absolutely right. The despicable two-step on the DC program was a total embarrassment.
Sane voices on the left are getting to be a thinner commodity by the day. Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias both rushed to defend Ted Kennedy’s naked power grab with the Senate Replacement rules. No shame. No embarrassment. Just naked will to power.
Best wishes,
-MFS
A proposal without tort reform is not a serious proprosal.
And an individual who believes Obama’s lies about “letting us keep our current plans” is a fool, or possibly a conscious liar for Obama.
The whole point of doing a large-scale “reform” is to *change* people’s coverage; to have some serious effect. Otherwise, why do it? The more Obama says his plans will have no meaningful effect on anything (except magically good effects), the more the American people rightly recognize he and his supporters as liars.
The question is, what kind of effect are you going for? Free market reforms, including tort reform (so that businesses can function), would have the effect of increasing choices, increasing quality, and most important, lowering costs for basic coverage. The Dear Teleprompter’s plans would do the opposite. Oh, yeah – he lies about that, too.
But there’s a deeper issue here. Obama’s entire discourse of *letting* us do this or that – “You can keep your doctor” – is a fascist discourse. He apparently thinks government is master of the People; that it is his place, as Dear Leader, to continue *letting* the People do this or that (or not). That is the opposite of everything America is supposed to stand for.
(sorry, should have said “him and his supporters…”)