Is this what it sounds like when magical gov’t healthcare ponies die?
The claims that America spends more for worse health care are crumbling under closer examination; people aren’t being fooled anymore by misleading comparisons of things that don’t measure health care outcomes. The poll numbers are dropping like a rock as more people figure out the difference between propaganda and reality.
Let’s hope these poll numbers kill this thing before it starts killing Americans.
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What a joke — this monstrosity is working its way thru Congress, like the Blob, nobody knows what it will cost down the road, nobody knows how it will affect the markets, nobody even reads the 2,000 or so pages of legalisms and gobbledy-gook.
Health care is a major stress for many Americans, but these bozos will invariably make it worse.
–HB
My wife says I am being unduly vague with my rant. Here’s the $100 Million pay-off to get Senator Landrieu’s vote from the great state of Louisiana:
SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.
Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.
‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.
‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.
‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.
I declare this is gobbledy gook of the highest order!
–HB
A poll of “registered voters?” Gah. Talk about grasping at straws.
Yes, the poll certainly shows us that politically unastute people are easily swayed in their opinions by ideologues and zealots. Too bad their opinions are usually easily swayed in other directions later.
It looks like this bill is likely to pass–and thank God for that, people are being killed every day by our ridiculously bad system, and we desperately need reform. Even if imperfect, the current bill definitely takes us in the right direction.
Dean,
I have to ask: Have you read and comprehended the current bills? If you have: Huzzah! You are to be admired for your fortitude. If not then your opinion has to be just as “swayed” by ideologues and zealots as those people you call “politically unastute”. True, ideologues and zealots you agree with, but ideologues and zealots nonetheless.
A few things amaze me about this bill. First, the fact that what is in the bill is less important than the Dems getting something passed called “health care reform” regardless of what’s actually in it. Heck, the entire bill could boil down to how to pay out $10 Billion a year to one Mike Lyons and the people who lean Dem would automatically be for it, the Dems would fight for its passage and declare victory when and if it were passed. And second, that the ideas being proposed in it are so tired and archaic, contrary to the people pressing it labeling themselves as “progressive”, because this has been the central obsession of the DNC for generations. And finally, that, along the lines of it being tired, it refuses real reform in favor of those previously archaic ideas and keeping in line with the Dems’ special interest groups.
This is a sad bill. Despite what the dems have said it won’t “pay for itself”, it won’t make anything better (at best it’ll keep things just as “bad” as they are currently; most likely it’ll make things much worse) and it is sorely unneeded in this time of record unemployment.
Heck, who cares that we’re in a deep recession, let’s just stack another Trillion a year on top of the current debt for a program no one will be able to access until after Obama’s reelection.
Thank goodness for the overall intelligence of the American people for seeing through this steaming pile and seeing it for what it is – a giant power grab that will simultaneously decrease the quality of health care while reducing access to seniors and significantly accelerating cost increases. Oh, and exploding the deficit AND taxes.
And good god, Dean, I hope that was a joke. There ZERO chance of this monstrosity passing. They have to give away $100M to buy votes just to START the debate.
Oh and please give us examples of the people “being killed daily” because there is no health care reform!
Dean,
So you’re down with the inevitable killing off of the old, like Brittain is moving to now?
But who cares about that, we’re all going to die some day anyway. What’s I’m really interested in is your willingness for the government to own you. Because, at the end of the day, whoever gets the bill for fixing something, owns it. Because they get to attach whatever provisions that they want to fixing it.
And not to put too fine a point on it, Dean, but you’re hardly personally going to benefit most in a national health care system. You’ve got a really high BMI, and you’re an admitted (former) alcoholic. Do you really think that you’re going to be high up on the lists for getting medical care sooner than your thinner, less self-destructive fellow citizens?
Or are you just betting that since degeneration always take time, we won’t get around to that sort of rationing until you’ve gotten your share?
What about the world you’ll be leaving your sons, where the government has a right to tell them what sports to play and what to eat and what to drink and what not to smoke, because all of those personal choices cost the public too much money? Statistically, obesity seems to have a heritable component, and neither you nor the mother of your children had low BMIs. The odds aren’t great for your children, especially since you’re not wealthy.
Why do you think, with all of this power, that society which hates fat people will somehow turn into angels and not use its power to pick on fat people all the more?
It’s not that there will be death squads roaming the country to kill off the fatties. With limited resources, all it takes is a preference for thin people. Want a heart transplant? Thing people should have preference, since (1) they’re morally superior and (2) they’re less likely to just destroy it. Non-smokers should get replacement lungs ahead of smokers. Replacement knees will go to thin people before fat people, and replacement knees will be less important than treatments for thin people diseases, so there’ll be fewer to go around.
Shortages are a wonderful way to discriminate, because there’s no one to blame, and no one to feel sorry for. A fat person limping along? It’s his own fault for being so fat. (Never mind that he injured his knee playing pickup basketball.)
You seem to have a curiously high opinion of the virtue of your fellow citizens, Dean. What on earth makes you think that you live in a country of saints?
And it’s not an answer that european countries have socialized medicine and aren’t doing this. First, they are. Second, they’re not us. We have much higher homicide rates than european countries, just to give one example.
Hey Dean, just thought you might want to be sure you are covering this story.
It’s not health care, but I’m not digging through your posts to find an appropriate one to post this in.
See ya.
A poll of “registered voters?” Gah. Talk about grasping at straws.
It’s worse for likely voters.
Even if imperfect, the current bill definitely takes us in the right direction
No, this bill will make things much worse. Premiums will go up because of the PEC mandates, the huge tax hike will hurt the economy, the deficit will go WAY up (the Medicare cuts are a mirage, they will never stand)… and worst of all, the federal government will force Americans to buy health insurance at gunpoint, an unprecedented blow to civil liberties.
And it’s not an answer that european countries have socialized medicine and aren’t doing this.
In fact, those things do happen; in Britain they are installing cameras to make sure people on gov’t aid exercise.
European health care is vastly inferior in general. They get drugs a year later and ration in ways we would find abhorrent. They often simply don’t treat marginal cases.
Chris: I find most of your questions non-sequiturs. Government will not own me. Many of those covered by insurance companies and all of those not-covered by insurance get treated far worse by the current equivalent of “death panels” and other such right-wing propaganda tommyrot than the paranoid delusions and outrageous exaggerations you’ve obviously let yourself swallow.
I mean, let’s just look at this:
Want a heart transplant? Thing people should have preference, since (1) they’re morally superior and (2) they’re less likely to just destroy it. Non-smokers should get replacement lungs ahead of smokers. Replacement knees will go to thin people before fat people, and replacement knees will be less important than treatments for thin people diseases, so there’ll be fewer to go around.
All of that is happening RIGHT NOW, all over America. For EVERYONE.
All of it. Every single bit of it. Today. Right now. In America, in our supposedly “free market” [coughbullshitcough] health insurance system. And, as we’ve already seen (links available) the very best health care in the United States is currently be offered by the government–it’s called the VA Health System.
So really, honestly? I’m not sure I even can answer your question as you appear to have intentionally brainwashed yourself. I hate to be so harsh, but really man.
I have had the (pleasure? experience?) of listening to Rush Limbaugh and others on the right lately get ever more hysterical and out of touch with reality as this bill gets closer and closer to passage. Limbaugh the other day was calling it the end of capitalism in America, the end of freedom, blah blah woof woof–ridiculous.
I am getting really tired, to be honest, of seeing places like Canada and Europe and Japan being portrayed as oppressive dictatorial hellholes of inferior care while America’s “free market” [coughbullshitcough] corporation-run health care system screws people over right and left, and kills people off–children, old people, the disabled–every damned day. It’s nonsense.
I’m simply out of patience with the right and/or libertarians on this. Most of what they’re peddling is a load of paranoid, ill-informed crap and market-ideologue zealotry.
Will the bill that eventually passes–and, thank God, it increasingly looks like a done deal, all over but the shouting–be perfect? Nope. It’ll have a ton of flaws. Over the years they’ll be corrected. It’ll be a huge improvement over the absolutely murderous disaster system we have right now, and with room to improve.
And no, we will not become a communist dicatorship, there will be no “death panels” (any moreso than we have them now, anyway), we will not become a Nazi-like state, government will not control every aspect of our lives. All that paranoid right-wing tommyrot? Well, it’s paranoid right-wing tommyrot. I won’t even deign to call it “conservative” because there’s very little conservative about any of it.
I’ll add Dean that insurance companies also use BMI as an excuse to raise premiums. A 6 foot tall 200lb personal trainer will get higher premiums because he is overweight.
And yes, currently we have “death panels”. People who decide whether you have to pay out of pocket to live. They are only motivated by profit and not votes however.
JRogge: it’s just fine and dandy if the insurance companies deny you coverage and raise your premiums and do a bunch of other things to control your life. After all, you’re “free” to walk away from them, so you can be crippled or die a free man and not a slave to “the man.”
Of course, under the new system you’d have the same freedom to pay cash or rely on charity, but let’s not confuse people with the facts!
See, it works like this:
Giant corporation = individual liberty and virtuous heroism
Government = nazilike control and collectivist destruction
Even Ayn Rand would see this for the nonsense that it is (and she was nuttier than squirrel poop).
Dean,
If the only thing that you’ll ever consider is what will happen in the next 5 minutes, there’s no point in trying to warn you off of jumping off of a building from which it takes 6 minutes to hit the ground.
I get that you’re tired, Dean. But frankly, you need to man up and stop trying to run away from thinking about the repercussions of actions. Thinking hurts, and you want someone else to fix all your problems, but you really need to think anyway.
Free men are often poorer than slaves; that doesn’t make the free man a slave and the slave a free man. There may be more important things than freedom, but please stop trying to call black white.
When the government tells you that you have to buy insurance or men with guns will come and lock you away in a cage, you’re not free, even if you are healthier.
In the ancient world, free men often sold themselves into slavery in order to eat. That may have been the best choice, it may have been the worst choice, or it might have been anything inbetween. But they went from being free men into being slaves.
Dean, you’re hurting and you want someone else to take care of you. That’s fine, if that’s what you want. But be a man and admit it. Stop making fun of people for caring more for freedom than for health by saying that they’re not free now.
Comfort isn’t freedom. Stop conflating the two.
You want to sell your freedom for comfort. It makes sense; that’s your right. But whether you do it or no, please stay an honest man.
Freedom doesn’t mean the ability to do whatever you want, it means the ability to make your own choices within the limits of what you can achieve. Poverty doesn’t make you a slave. Poverty may limit the scope of what you can achieve to a small number of undesireable outcomes, but it doesn’t make you a slave merely because you don’t like any of your choices.
If somebody threatens to skin you alive unless you deny Jesus rose from the dead, you still have a choice.
Health care isn’t nearly as important as whether one denies Christ, obviously. It’s trivial in comparison. But it is similar. Sometimes your choices suck; that doesn’t make you a slave, it only makes you unfortunate.
A slave is what you are when you trade your freedom for some material good. It doesn’t matter how little freedom you trade, or how many material goods you get. It may be a good deal or a bad deal. It’s not selling your soul. But please call a spade a spade.
Make whatever choices you want, but be honest about what you’re doing.
JRogge: it’s just fine and dandy if the insurance companies deny you coverage and raise your premiums and do a bunch of other things to control your life.
Forcing companies to cover people at a loss is just not sensible. Would you require life insurance companies to sell people insurance 0n their deathbed?
The current system has problems, but those are mostly the result of government intervention: mandates create high premiums, and insurance companies aren’t allowed to compete across state lines. Let’s fix those and unleash the free market.
corporation-run health care system screws people over right and left, and kills people off–children, old people, the disabled–every damned day.
Corporations can’t decide to deny coverage because it’s too expensive. They have to fulfill their contracts or face ruinous legal liability. Yes, rescission happens. Yes, they are sued for it.
Gov’ts, otoh, can and do simply let people die if they’re too expensive, and you have no recourse.
CTL: So, given that virtually all of America’s senior citizens are on Medicare (or the even-better VA health system) and have been for generations, it appears that we may want to think quite a bit more than 5 minutes into the future–or past. History is already there for us to guage: Medicare works great, is highly popular, and guess what? I don’t think most of our 65-and-up citizens are unfree. I don’t think they think so either. Nor do I think most Brits, Canadians, Japanese, Australians, etc. etc. (you know, citizens of every advanced Western democracy EXCEPT the United States) are all a bunch of slaves.
So I’m thinking more than five minutes into the future. And a good bit more than 5 minutes into the past, come to think of it. History is already the judge, and the theory that getting government involved in health care results in mass oppression and the death of freedom has already been judged by history: it’s a fantasy based on hyperbole and little else.
As for Christ: the Church’s position has been for some time now that whenever possible government should provide universal health care. Were it not for thorny questions about abortion and physician choice in related matters, the Church hierarchy is already on the President’s side, and on the side of the majority in Congress. And I don’t think the Church’s mission is to turn us all into slaves either.
Health care isn’t about making people slaves. It’s about fulfilling a positive moral (and Christian, come to think of it) obligation to each other.
People need to take care of each other. The notion that freedom only comes from doing for yourself as the rugged individual isn’t particularly deep, isn’t particularly thoughtful, and isn’t particularly Christian.
If you want some deep thinking, you might try, just as a thought-experiment, shedding notions that “true freedom comes only from taking care of yourself.” It’s deeper than that. We are not a species of isolated individuals; no man is an island. And in seeking to see that ALL Americans (not merely myself) are covered, I may not seek “comfort” for them or myself; I may in fact seek protection, for us all. Mutual protection being one of the things we’re supposed to do for each other.
I think, myself, that much of this generation’s market-worshiping zealotry stems from philosophies of the 20th century that were opposed to Marxism. Where Marxism revered the collective above all (to a psychotic level), so in reaction opposing forces revered the individual above all, and a generation later that’s reached at least near-psychotic levels.
I believe both such philosophies represent bipolar extremes which each deny the central truth: we are all simultaneously individuals and part of a collective whole. We are 100% BOTH. And, we have positive and negative obligations to each other, but the bottom line, in my view, is that seeing to it that the sick are cared for is a positive obligation we all have that is every bit as important as any other form of mutual protection. It’s why we are social animals, just like all other primates, and not solitary beasts. It’s not our nature, it’s now how we’re supposed to be–and it’s not, in fact, how most of us really are. Or should be.
I put it to you that you have a wider obligation to the society that nurtured and protects you. And that society has obligations to you. Sometimes, forcing you to act responsibly is part of the messy business of being alive and part of the human race. The question isn’t whether this is ever necessary, but where to set the limits.
On the whole, I’d rather be told I have to help pay for others’ health care than be drafted to fight in a war. But I don’t deny that both may sometimes be necessary. So be it.
Dave: Uhm, corporations do, in fact–empirical, demonstrable, actual hard-nosed fact–deny coverage because it’s too expensive. They do it constantly. With or without government meddling. That’s just the way it is.
So all I can see is that you’re suggesting the horrid possibility that government might, maybe, do what private insurance companies already do every day of the week.
It’s really bizarre to me to hear someone telling horror stories about how government might do things that corporations are already doing.
People get refused coverage every single day in this country. They die from it, every single day in this country. I cannot take seriously anyone who wants to even have this discussion if they cannot, will not, acknowledge that fundamentally undeniable fact.
It’s really bizarre to me to hear advocates of helthcare “reform” fall into this argument sequence:
“Reform” ideologue: “We need healthcare reform and the public option because too many people fall through the cracks because private companies deny coverage or treatment because it is too expensive. Healthcare reform will CHANGE THIS”
Rational Thinker: “Uhm, scarce resource allocation is a fact of life. If you have a public-run healthcare system you’ll have the same denial but no way to sue, appeal or otherwise get the treatment you need”
“Reform” Ideologue: “So what if governments do this? Corporations already do this all the time”
To which the only response the Rational person can say is “Then, since you’ve undermined your own basic argument, why do you still want it?”
Oh, and I don’t think Jesus would be very happy with a society set up so men and women no longer have to feel individually responsible for their fellow humans and instead can be callous, selfish immoral people who just let a mindless, automatic government bureaucracy take care of all the moral decisions.
Mike: Teehee.
Inconvenient fact #1: Private corporations deny people coverage and deny them care all the time because they are too expensive. You cannot simultaneously attack government for any time it does this and not attack corporations for same. Not if you’re going to be morally consistent, and CERTAINLY not if you’re a Rational Thinker.
Inconvenient fact #2: No modern western-style democracy with government run health system has ever devolved into this paranoid fantasy you invoke of “a society set up so men and women no longer have to feel individually responsible for their fellow humans and instead can be callous, selfish immoral people who just let a mindless, automatic government bureaucracy take care of all the moral decisions.” It’s a fantasy, a bugaboo, a red herring, and a definite impediment to rational thinking. To whatever extent people shuffle off their moral decisions to government, they no more do this than they do to charities, to private corporations, or individuals other than themselves.
Indeed, #2 leads me to conclude that there ARE no Rational Thinkers amongst the market-worshiping zealots who are opposing this badly-needed reform.
A reform that, I remind you again, a majority of the medical AND health insurance industry favor. Those who actually WORK in the market favor this. You’d think that would penetrate through the fog of ideology for some, at least.
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