Health Care-Reform — What’s Blocking It

I wish the press, including you Jay, would stop calling the Blue Cross Dog democrats conservative.

Being in bed with corporate interests at the expense of small business and the average taxpayer is not “conservative”.

Voting for the Bush tax cut for the wealthy at the cost of $1.35 trillion extra to the budget deficit is not “conservative”.

Pro corporate democrats might suffice. It’s kind of neutral language and factual.

you know how completely the media has bought the GOP line when the public option is described as “highly controversial”…. despite its being supported by 3/4 of Americans. (Sure if you push poll the question, those numbers go down — but that’s only if you push poll it.)

52 Blue Dogs and 82 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Which ones get the media love? And why?
Pro corporate is exactly right.

What’s blocking health care reform? The media.

No, seriously.

You spend so much of your time focused on the shiny pretty objects out there — from Michael Jackson to Skip Gates — that you reduce the amount of time that we can devote to a discussion of issues that actually matter. (Sorry, issues that matter to those of us who aren’t still stuck in a maturity level of a tween.)

And then when you actually do deign to discuss the real issues, you buy into Republican talking points and, worse, refuse to get involved in the details of the matter. (I know, I know, facts and policy are boring. They hurt your little heads.)

Sorry, but we need to have this discussion, openly and honestly. I have good friends and family members who are being killed by their health care bills — two bankruptcies in the past year, and a couple more on the brink — and you freaking idiots are sitting there killing our chances at getting this done.

You blew it on the war, and you blew it on torture, and you blew it on everything else for the last three or four decades. But please. Just this once. Do your godd@mn jobs.

The media sure loves to present the fate of health care reform as certain doom and gloom. I wonder what youl will write when it passes by the end of the year…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

What’s blocking it?

1. Comparing Apples to Oranges

JNS says that the top goal is “to bring down the long-term costs of health care on the government, companies and individuals.” But the CBO report and most reporting — including that of KT — focuses on government costs and ignores the impact on the private sector. Why? Because the Congressional Democrats and the White House have decided that any reform package must comply with Congress’ self-imposed budgeting rules.

2. Democrats Failed to Anticipate Where Cost-Savings Would Come From

Hello? If you have a back-of-the-envelope calculation months, if not years, in advance of how much this will all cost, and if you pledge to comply with PAYGO rules, and if you take the biggest cost saver of them all — single-payer — off the table before negotiations start then you damn well have a pretty good idea where the money will come from and be ready to sell that idea.

3. Tackling Universal Coverage At the Same Time As Cost Reform

Obama was smarter in the primaries on this issue precisely because he understood that it was better to use the tools that liberals have been clamoring for (e.g. direct negotiation by the government with providers and drug companies to lower prices and the elimination of wasteful, private-insurance administration overhead) to bring down costs on the system BEFORE you try to get everybody covered.

But now Obama has allowed opponents of reform to ironically point to the costs of existing obligations and new subsidies as an excuse for derailing cost-saving measures, as if those costs wouldn’t be borne under the existing system if everybody was covered.

4. Sideshow Antics

The press is predictably bored with having to read proposed health care legislation (or summaries thereof). Opponents of reform want to distract the public from the issue so that the public doesn’t realize it is getting the shaft. Hence, distractions like the “Birthers” (thank you, p_luk). Even the MSM members who don’t want to look like kooks can cover the story by denouncing the Birthers instead of following boring policy debates.

Certainly there is more to this bill than just passing it.
I quote the great philosopher Sarah Palin in her farewell speech to the great state of Alaska up there.

“And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected honest profession that could and should be the cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how ’bout in honor of the American soldier, ya quite makin’ things up. And don’t underestimate the wisdom of the people, and one other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family too, so leave his kids alone.”

Hear, hear. When will the media acknowledge that one of its primary sources of “information” – the Republican static machine – is simply unreliable and generally incredible? Kevin notes the recent cataclysmic reporting failures on vital issues, and the element they have in common is the ready perpetration of GOP mythology in the name of “balance,” often elevated to the status of “conventional wisdom.”

Just because these clowns can yell louder doesn’t mean they’re entitled to attention, and their reliable unreliability should have precisely the opposite result.

Actually I think Republican would be a better adjective.

Quit calling them “fiscal conservatives” !!

they voted for last month’s Supplemental – which included $26B to bail out European Banks

all 7 currently blocking Heathcare in committee want to keep the F-22

none of them have met a Defense Appropriation they don’t like

current earmarks (oinky-oinky) from just the committee 7 for this session:
$240M
up from $155M last session

all 7 holding up the committee demand increased MediCare and MedicAid expenditures

the current Bill has been shown to meet their demands for ‘defict neutrality’ yet the footdragging continues

meanwhile their constituents continue to struggle and suffer with insufficient healthcare access – their leader on the committee; Mike Ross (AR-04) has a district with a 22% rate of non access and 30% below the poverty line .

looks like the $261,000 he’s received this cycle from “health professionals” and the $100,000 annual dividend he enjoys from his sold pharmacy business are the only numbers that matter

I’ll second Kevin’s statement.

Here’s Digby

And don’t forget the WaPo’s recent pay for play soiree.
~

Hence, distractions like the “Birthers” (thank you, p_luk).
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uh, far more effort and attention was directed at mocking the birthers than the “birthers” themselves were devoting to the topic. Perhaps more crucially, it was all about mockery — the way to rebut the birthers is to release the primary/original source documents.
_
but so-called progressives like yourself prefer to focus on GOP sideshows (like Palin, Sandford, and the “birthers”) rather than go after the real impediments to health care reform — Obama’s decision to let the parasites set the agenda by deferring to DINOs like Baucus and Conrad. GOP obstructionism has been a given from day one, but Obama wanted to keep Broder and Tumulty happy with a “bipartisan” approach…. virtually dooming any meaningful reform.

I second Kevin’s comment. The media are an absolute disgrace. I regard myself as somewhat intelligent but still after reading the MSM’s analysis of the health care plans I don’t understand what the proposals are. It was only once Obama started actively promoting the reform that I learned about the health care exchange proposal. To me that sounded exactly like the free marketing nirvana that Repubs always want – what’s the objection to that?

The media is sadly only interested in conflict and process stories: will healthcare reform happen? Is Obama stalling? is he doing too much? is the republican strategy a good one? did Obama look tired at his press conference?

None of those questions address what healthcare reform will look like. None of them actually consider whether the “public option” will actually provide competition to the private insurers. None of them address the massive massive profits made by insurance companies. None of them point out that pretty much the only care available is “managed care” – which by definition is rationed care.

In my optimistic days I begin to think that Republicans are in a lose-lose situation. Either healthcare reform passes and they will be in the wilderness for having opposed it; or it doesn’t pass and they will in the wilderness for causing it to fail. But largely I am pessimistic; the republicans will scare the “blue dogs” into opposing reform, it won’t happen and Obama will get blamed. Liberals will pile on with shouts of Obama should have twisted arms and broken legs (as if he isn’t doing that behind closed doors!!!) and the world’ll get some disgrace of a neanderthal back to being the president of the US.

From a non-US point of view, what was so exciting and wonderful about Obama being elected was not that he was such a great guy, or that he walked on water but rather it was that our (the world’s) collective disappointment in the US public for electing Bush twice disappeared and was replaced by a genuine admiration for the US public to vote in this intelligent, honest, thoughtful man as President. That admiration is now turning back into deep disappointment.

First let me take a moment to thank JNS for clearly having spent some time educating herself on the issues. While there’s a middle paragraph that contains some of the “some say” – “Others counter” constructions, that I find so annoying, overall the article presents a good detailed picture of the current state of play.

The one point of CW that I think everyone has wrong is the likely outcome of the recess. As the article points out, Obama’s campaign apparatus is still in play, cries of ‘socialism’ have their uses but they’re not exactly much of a growth strategy, and when the Blue Dogs actually start interacting with their constituents, they might be surprised to learn that voters think they’re part of the problem.

I could be wrong but I think that the reform effort will be healthier in September, not the opposite.

Separately let me note, that I think Paygo is important and should not be circumvented. If we need to raise revenue, let’s just be honest and do it….

Meanwhile:

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that 18,000 Americans died in 2000 because they were uninsured. Since then, the number of uninsured has grown. Based on the IOM’s methodology and subsequent Census Bureau estimates of insurance coverage, 137,000 people died from 2000 through 2006 because they lacked health insurance, including 22,000 people in 2006.

Multiple 9/11 death counts every year while the Congress is dragging its collective feet and milking campaign donations from business interests. For even more fun, take a look at the numbers of dead in the states that the Blue Dogs come from.

Now, consider that these estimates include only the uninsured, not the underinsured or those who were denied coverage.

We, as a country, are better than this…Aren’t we?

“We, as a country, are better than this…Aren’t we?”

I so want to believe that it hurts. It hurts every day that I realise that America is not.

The reality is that Americans are raised on the cult of individuality. The fact that 20,000 people die every year for lack of insurance is totally their fault: I’m ok, why can’t they be?

The press will leave the Alaska’s new First Family alone unless they choose to thrust themselves into the national spotlight by parading the kids around and talking crazy. Sarah brought it on her family herself by playing the media wh0re.

Sarah never thought things through, much less thought at all. Palin wanted media attention but she only wanted positive attention. She can keep on playing to the “real” America regardless of how unreal that really is.

I so want to believe this it hurts

Yeah, me too.

The reality is that Americans are raised on the cult of individuality…

…and sacrificed on the altar of unfettered capitalism.

Nice try, p_luk. Most of us “so-called” progressives can we walk and chew gum at the same time. We can even pat our heads and rub our bellies.

We can — and do, on a daily basis — criticize Baucus and Conrad as tools of parasitic corporations.

We can — and do, on a daily basis — criticize Obama for his role in allowing the Blue Dogs to highjack the legislative process.

We can — and do, on a daily basis — criticize the media, including KT, JNS, and JK, when they buy into corporate talking points and use loaded, biased, and nonsense terminology like “fiscally conservative Democrats” to discuss this issue.

And, yes, we can and do mock Sarah Palin and the “Birthers”…because they deserve to be mocked. If I was booking guests on a cable news show, would I spend more than 60 seconds discussing the Birthers? No. But I’m not, and as long as the MSM chooses to waste time on the nonsense, I will mock them.

the way to rebut the birthers is to release the primary/original source documents.

Really? You mean like the way to rebut the Vince-Foster-Was-Murdered-By-Hillary nutjobs was to have a federal investigation into his death? And then a second? And then a third? And perform amateur ballistic tests on watermelons? Is that the way to rebut these stories?

Sorry, but I am quite familiar with the mentality of the Birthers and it is IMPOSSIBLE to rebut the Birthers because they are irrational, xenophobic, nutjobs who refuse to accept contrary facts.

Barack Obama released an official copy of his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. Take a look at it. It says, “This copy serves as prima facie evidence of birth in any court proceeding” Do you know what that means? It means that the burden has been shifted to YOU — not Obama — and any other irrational, Birther douchebag to come forward with evidence that the document has been falsified. Until then, there are no “questions” surrounding Obama’s birth and you will receive my complete and total mockery.

We, as a country, are better than this…Aren’t we?

We have a $700 billion plus annual military budget. Yeah, we can be better, we choose not to be.

Indulge me… If we lower that number to $200 billion, including ending the Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures, it would still be more than three-times the expenditure of our next highest competitor. That would save over half-a-trillion US taxpayer dollars annually. And considering veteran care, the savings would be significantly higher. Think about what is possible over the next decade.

I vote for corporate democrats…but which D’s *aren’t* corporate? Feingold isn’t, and so is…..uh………

that was reply to trifecta’s first comment, oops

Separately let me note, that I think Paygo is important and should not be circumvented. If we need to raise revenue, let’s just be honest and do it….

sorry, but PAYGO, because it excludes so much (like funding for unnecessary wars), is fundamentally dishonest to begin with. Perhaps once we start paying for everything else we spend money on, we can start worrying about not “circumventing” a non-existent PAYGO system. But until we raise taxes enough to pay for the REST of budget deficits, its immoral to deny people adequate health care because of “PAYGO” considerations.

When I read my local paper’s “Letters to the Editor” about health care reform, it amazes me that the people writing the most against it, are the ones who could benefit from it the most. Along with the “don’t raise my taxes to pay for other’s health care” and the socialism charge, they fail to note that 1), it’s unlikely they will see a tax increase because their income is not high enough, and 2) their health care premiums are more than likely to come down if there is a public option. They continue to believe that we have the best health care delivery in the world. To believe otherwise is un-American. If all these people listen to are Fox News and in my area, central Illinois, it’s big, it’s not wonder they don’t have their facts straight. The media has got to start playing a bigger and better role other than handing out Republican talking points. Just today Dana Bash was out shilling for Mitch McConnell with the “it’s not quite what it seems” Holmes/Canadian health care story. Do reporters actually do any journalism anymore?

No.

YARR!

Does Rita Cosby count?

“Being in bed with corporate interests at the expense of small business and the average taxpayer is not “conservative”.

I’m sorry, that may not be the traditional definition but at least since Ronald Reagan made the scene, that is the very working definition of the “conservative” movement. Add in a giant helping of mendaciousness and more than a little delusional thinking if you like but modern “conservatism”, whether Republican or Democratic is fealty to corporate interests at the exclusion of nearly everything else.

The state of health care, our media, our regulatory system, and the majority of our other macro level faults are symptoms, not the root problems. This is why even when an “adjustment” is made to any of the former, it tends to be for naught.

“The reality is that Americans are raised on the cult of individuality. The fact that 20,000 people die every year for lack of insurance is totally their fault: I’m ok, why can’t they be?” (good quote homerhk)

Couple that with the other embedded notion that everything must be for profit, and you end up with the pure “me” society.

Ideally, corporations would be about maximizing profit, the people would be focused on the good of the whole for the long-term, and the government (for the people, by the people?) would be the tool that balanced the short term profit motives vs. the values/morals and long term benefit of the society. Heh, too bad that didn’t work out.

Somewhere along the way the small minority got enough sway to make the media a “for profit” industry. That essentially killed journalism as a major force (some still exists, but it is now the exception vice the rule). When people asked about why they don’t make ‘em like Concrite anymore the first thing I thought was because newsrooms are just another part of the entertainment industry now. They are no longer public servants in any way shape or form. If you have any doubt, compare the Daily show to your favorite “news program”.

Equally, jobs in Washington DC have become just another set of defacto corporate careers. Very few public servants are in public office. They are simply following their career path in and out of office, company boards, lobbying offices, etc.

History tells us that only necessity breaks such trends when they become this dominant. Unfortunately, for our level of relative prosperity, necessity most likely means a great deal of suffering. Yes health care needs reform, but the very people who allowed it to get where it is are the ones reforming it. They will do just enough to keep it out of oblivion while maintaining as much as possible in the realm of “business as usual”. Even if Congress does miraculously change it’s stripes this one time, all the major players (doctors, legal firms, insurance companies, etc.) will simply find the loopholes and continue to exploit in the name of profit.

It would be comical if it was not so sad.

Perhaps what some beltway journalists do can fairly be describes as “journalism”, at least the cramped version that the new rules of their industry allow. But, much like the Medieval courts of Kings, only our jesters are allowed to tell important truths.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/22/time-magazine-poll-jon-st_n_242933.html

Chris Eldred from Letters from the Editors thinks that Pelosi’s new attitude with her bold “show of resolve Pelosi has taken strong leadership of her caucus and the media narrative, and given inspiration and confidence to the legions of liberals across the country who are counting on systematic reform being passed this year.

Perhaps this show of force will also persuade wavering moderates of the inevitability of a bill’s passage; then, these key votes may get on board, hoping to get something they want out of the bill instead of holding out and getting nothing. Moderate input could improve the bill substantially, as they have been the ones most demanding of measures to control spiraling costs—critical to the long-term sustainability of whatever expanded coverage liberals will put in place.”

Read more at http://letterstotheeditors.wordpress.com

KT:
“A good two-thirds of the bill is already paid for: $237 billion would come from fines on employers and individuals who don’t comply with new rules to provide or buy health insurance; $525 billion would come from reductions in Medicare payments to private insurers and money ponied up by drug companies — as touted by Obama in a high-profile White House event.”

Amongst Americans, these are the two least popular methods of raising revenue! On top of that, when you figure the fines when averaged amongst the 330,000,000 people who live here amounts to an average fine of $800 for every man, woman, and child in the United States!

This is relentlessly ridiculous, and even more so when only a few tens of billions are coming from corporate pockets.

What the left hand giveth, the right hand thows away…

Apparently I need to say this ONE MORE TIME. Hawai’i does not release original birth ceritifcates EVER. Not even under subpoena. They send a notarized Certificate of Live Birth. The original is on file in Honolulu. If the US State Department decided a COLB was good enough for me to get a passport, to me that settles the issue.

A little history lesson is in order.

The Blue Dogs are the political descendants of a now defunct Southern Democratic group known as the Boll Weevils, who played a critical role in the early 1980s by supporting President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut plan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil_(politics)

The Boll Weevils, in turn, may be considered the descendants of the “states’ rights” Democrats of the 1940s through ’60s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights

Their history is not exactly one to be proud of, and they tend to remain Democrats because of the Republican Party is not exactly rehabilitated in the South.