NEWS FLASH: Rush Limbaugh Endorses Health Reform!

Facts are bias.
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Ignorance is strength.
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Obama is socialist.
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Palin 2012.

Yeah he accidentally claimed the Hawaii system was proof that we had the best system and the Hawaii system is a product of reform. But Lord knows he’ll just claim like the rest of his conservative brethren that we imagined it.

Welcome back from holiday, KT. I hope your New Year went well with minimal hangover (though sorry about your friend’s loss as you posted earlier). Will you travel to the national title game?
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As for Rush, after recent painful events I wonder if he’s had a change of heart (literally?). I’ll bet he favors cheaper drug imports, but I digress.
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But KT, semi-OT but still on HCR, I gotta ask if you think the latest rumors about bypassing joint committee are true. As you may painfully remember, I asked you and Kate a LOT if final bill recon or jt. comm.. bypass was likely. Thanks for your thoughts as always.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/exclusive-dems-almost-certain-bypass-conference

I believe his exact words were: “If health care reform is a good thing, may Darrelle Revis shut down Chad Ochocinco and force him to change his name back to Chad Johnson!”*

*For football fans only.

I think the chances are good that they will bypass conference, though the final decision on that has not been made.
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Alas, I will not be in Pasadena (though my brother will). I will be at home in my family room watching the game and eating chili with my kids and a few friends from college. Mr. Swamp tends to root for whoever is playing against Texas, so we may not invite him. HOOK ‘EM HORNS!!!!

KT, any truth to the rumor that when Limabugh was wheeled into the E.R. he was wearing a “Glenn Beck 9/12 Project” visor with Glenn Beck’s name blacked out?

Clearly America has world class health care. If you can afford it. It’s if you can’t afford it that is the problem. You could be living across the street from the freaking Mayo Clinic, but if you are uninsured, are you really going to seek out treatment there if you can avoid it? Anyone out there really think Cheney or McCain would get covered with their medical histories if they had to be insured under the same system as the rest of us peons?

Greg Sargent says top liberal in House is opposed to not using the formal conference process.
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But in a statement, Rep Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, criticized the scheme and complained he hadn’t even been consulted yet:

“I am disappointed that there will be no formal conference process by which various constituencies can impact the discussion. I have not been approached about my concerns with the Senate bill, and I will be raising those at the Democratic Caucus meeting on Thursday. I and other progressives saw a conference as a means to improve the bill and have a real debate, and now with this behind-the-scenes approach, we’re concerned even more.”

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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/top-house-liberal-rips-dem-plan-to-skip-conference-to-pass-health-care/

KT I’m curious — since your excuse for consistently portraying health care reform in a negative light is your personal cynicism toward the subject based on how it turned out last time around and just knowing what you do about Washington in general, does the likelihood of the Democrats bypassing the conference committee in favor of coming up with a final bill in private without Republican interference and media cynicism or distortion make you less cynical about the actual passing of health care legislation?

KT, best wishes for both the game and your chili. Hopefully the chili is a family heirloom recipe to hand down to your kids.

Ivy: This will be an interesting political dynamic. If they bypass conference, both the Republicans and the most liberal Democrats are going to scream bloody murder.

KT:

Hawaii still has some of the lowest health care costs in the nation, despite its high cost of living and without an apparent decrease in quality–as Limbaugh himself discovered

…and we’re still unable to be informed that Hawaii’s costs are twice the average of other wealthy countries’ price tag for health care.
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The only way that Hawaii could be labeled a health care success story is if the press corps acted like the press corps in North Korea, and pretended that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Only in America and North Korea are citizens seemingly prohibited from learning about successful health care models originating from outside their borders.
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But, but, but Hawaii has some of the lowest health care costs in the nation! We should obviously be more like Hawaii!
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Sigh…Hawaii pays a third more than the entire nation of Germany and twice more than the entire nation of Japan per person in health care costs. The only reason Hawaii seems like such a good deal is because it’s being compared to states in which even more profiteer looting of the health care system is entrenched.
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We could be more like Hawaii, or we could be more like Germany. We’re stuck with Hawaii. Because Limbaugh vacations there, we get to hear facts about Hawaii’s success in comparison to the rest of the hyper-inflationary US health care market, but not its horrifying failure in comparison to everywhere else in the developed world. This is the reason why health care reform legislation was allowed to safely skate away from doing anything about the actual problem of US health care prices. Folks here just don’t know what a bad deal they’re getting. They don’t know that the rest of the world pays so much less, and gets just as good, if not better. They’re strangely uninformed about these basic facts.
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So when all is said and done, and Hawaii’s wonderful, superior, open-armed embrace of health care reform Democrat-style is in full effect, say, around 2015 or 2016 or so, will the Social Security Trustees’ Report tell us that Medicare is going broke?
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Well? Surely we must have solved that enormous problem in all of this legislation, right?
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If the centrists’ health care reform is so necessary, so key to getting the health care system under control, then we’ll see a new Social Security Trustees’ Report that says the opposite of this ( link to 2009 SS Trustees’ Report detailing how health care prices are killing Medicare ):

Medicare’s financial status is much worse [than Social Security's]. As was true in 2008, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues.
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As we reported last year, Medicare’s financial difficulties come sooner—and are much more severe—than those confronting Social Security. While both programs face demographic challenges, rapidly growing health care costs also affect Medicare. Underlying health care costs per enrollee are projected to rise faster than the earnings per worker on which payroll taxes and Social Security benefits are based. As a result, while Medicare’s annual costs were 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, or about three quarters of Social Security’s, they are projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028…
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For Social Security, the reform options are relatively well understood but the choices are difficult. Medicare is a bigger challenge. Its cost growth can be contained without sacrificing quality of care only if health care cost growth more generally is contained. But despite the difficulties—indeed, because of the difficulties—it is essential that action be taken soon, particularly to control health care costs.

, correct?
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So, is the problem of Medicare solved, come 2013 or 2015 or whenever the “new system” is in full effect? Did the authors and enablers of this legislation take that “essential action” to bring down skyrocketing prices?
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By “reforming health care” –just like Hawaii!– did the United States government finally make health care affordable, or are we still going broke?

“Except he apparently didn’t know it.”
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Opiate addictions can have that effect.

I have been told Hawaii is foreign. What’s the point of this post?

typical KT, nothing on climategate or Acorn, but you can count on her for a snarky post on the boogieman Rush Limbaugh. how predictable

My hat is off to you for your refusal to let this issue die. After my 10,000th unacknowledged plea to KT, JNS, and KP to compare the various legislative proposals based on their impact on the overall cost of health care (and on insurance premiums), I threw in the towel.
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If KT wants to mindlessly regurgitate the spin of a industry whore like Max Baucus that the only thing that matters is the impact on the federal budget…hey, its her blog. Just don’t expect me to respect the analysis.

The SEIU is downright giddy. The headline on their press release: “Hell Freezes Over: Rush Limbaugh Loves Union Hospitals & Socialized Medicine.” The release concludes, “On behalf of the labor movement and health reform advocates everywhere, THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT, Rush!”

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

OOPS!

More proof that Rush doesn’t think before he opens that mouth of his…

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

Apologies if this has been posted before, but here’s a graphic visual depiction of what SZ is talking about:
http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html

^ Haha yes. I only saw the highlights, though, since I was busy watching my Cowboys demolish the evil Eagles at the amazing Cowboys Stadium.

Then let’s just take Hawaii’s model and make a perfect duplication with the 49 other states simultaneously! Easy, right?

Hey, chips, what exactly do you want Swampland to cover on ACORN? I keep seeing rusty and you blathering about how it is like THE MOST CORRUPT GROUP EVAH!!!111!
Unfortunately, you guys keep leaving out the part where you mention what the scandalous behavior was.
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Leaving those little details out is what causes people to suspect that what really bothers you is just that ACORN registers (disproportionately Democratic) poor minorities to vote.

I think his ballcap actually said “Oxy Moron”.

Thanks for the graphic, but it’s unfortunate that National Geographic had to explain the discrepancy in cost as a function of use, as opposed to a function of price.
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It fits a very neat storyline that contains a great deal of truth, but the fact that fee-for-service leads to unnecessary, i.e. wasteful costs doesn’t explain the difference between the price of an MRI in Japan and the price of that procedure in Texas.
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It isn’t just that there is an abundance of inefficiency in delivery, it’s that what’s being delivered costs more here than anywhere else.
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Take, for example, prescription drug pricing ( link to Kaiser Foundation ):

In a comparison of the 20 prescription drugs most commonly prescribed to Medicare beneficiaries, Families USA found that the lowest prices available through the Medicare cards for 10 of the medications were at least 50% higher than prices negotiated by VA, according to Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack.
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The study also found that the lowest drug card price for Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering medication and the most frequently prescribed drug for seniors, was 59% higher than the price available through VA. According to the study, the Medicare drug card price was 46% higher than the VA price for cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor, 56% higher for acid reflux treatment Prevacid and 65% higher for blood pressure medicine Norvasc. VA discounts also exceeded Medicare drug card prices for the other 10 drugs, although only by 7% in one case (Hartford Courant, 6/3).

Even within the United States, even within Federal entitlement programs there are discrepancies between the prices paid for identical prescription drugs.
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Extending the price comparisons internationally, even to our close neighbors, leads to more evidence of inflationary US prices:

One of the most important differences between the two countries is the much higher cost of drugs in the United States. In the U.S., $728 per capita is spent each year on drugs, while in Canada it is $509.[82] At the same time, consumption is higher in Canada, with about 12 prescriptions being filled per person each year in Canada and 10.6 in the United States.[84]
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The main difference is that patented drug prices in Canada average between 35% and 45% lower than in the United States, though generic prices are higher.[85] The price differential for brand-name drugs between the two countries has led Americans to purchase upward of $1 billion US in drugs per year from Canadian pharmacies.[86]

But it’s not just Canada, and it’s not just prescription drugs.
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In every other OECD country almost every type of health care consumable, e.g. hospitals, medical procedures, prescription drugs and laboratory tests is less expensive than in the US, while their use is as high or higher than ours.
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If we simply over-prescribed, and over-tested, and over-treated because of fee-per-service inefficiencies, then we would probably see exemplary countries like Japan doing far less in comparison, wouldn’t we? But that just isn’t the case ( link to the Washington Post ):

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

Unfortunately, the idea that there are wide price discrepancies between what Americans pay and what everybody else pays seems to be very, very confusing for reporters. It’s as if they believe that it’s still 1980, and the dollar should buy them vast quantities of quality merchandise in quaint old Europe, and when it doesn’t anymore, when even the Canadian Loonie has been worth more than the dollar for almost a decade, they can’t get their minds around it.
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The problems with the United States’ system are many, from an over-abundance of paper-pushing to a wildly uncoordinated supply chain, and yes, fee-for-service is a part of the high cost equation.
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But the basic facts of the matter are that a health care apple in one part of Texas can cost $10 compared to a health care apple in Hawaii costing $7, while a health care apple in Japan costs them $3.60. It’s not the cost of insurance against the cost of health care apples that’s bankrupting Medicare and the private system, just the price of the apples themselves.
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Prices are what’s wrong with health care in the United States. Prices are what make fee-for-service unsustainable here. Prices are what will ultimately drive all insurance –Medicare and private– into the ditch.
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The question is: why is it so hard for reporters to say the word “price” when talking about health care costs? Why is it so hard for them to comparison shop for MRI’s around the wealthy world, and then tell the American people if we’re actually getting a good price –or if we’re getting ripped off?

Because the premise of the question is that the United States is exceptional only in a very bad way. Remember the right-wing mantra: “greatest health care system on earth, greatest health care system on earth…” It’s sort of an inoculation.

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See Stuart your fundamental problem is that you confuse policy with politics. The media narrative is driven by politics. Its not that the Americans can’t know about successes outside their borders its the fact that they don’t want to know about what happens outside their borders. Didn’t you ever wonder why opponents to health care reform so often rail against a so-called Canadian style system as if its a curse? Its because any focus group will tell you that the downside to American exceptionalism is the rejection that we should pattern anything after a country outside our borders. The bottom line is the even now the most common international experience for the vast majority of Americans is limited to the occasional exposure to Chinese takeout. For a nation of immigrants, we tend to become incredibly parochial in subsequent generations. Like I said before, it’s not that moderates reject the policies of progressives, its that we know we can’t make them politically acceptable outside of the Democratic party. And unfortunately, Democrats alone does not a majority make. Oh and by the way, the fact that pragmatists recognize the political impediments doesn’t mean its all they care about, they just want to keep moving the ball toward the goal line so that eventually we can enact the policy we support, while policy only folks are content to lose the good fight year after year and rather fail to advance the ball in order to maintain policy purity.

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Thanks so much for reading and responding.

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[...] Rush Limbaugh's objection–after his recent positive experience in Hawaii, the only state with an employer mandate–is that Obama's health care plan isn't [...]