The U.S. Health Care Debate

**Marshal Murat** · 08-03-2009, 18:11

Thank you BQ

**Lemur** · 08-03-2009, 22:32

The status quo rocks!

Our six-month-old daughter cost over $22,000.

You’d think, with a number like that, we must have used fertility treatments—but she was conceived naturally. You’d think we went through an adoption agency—but she is a biological child. So surely, we were uninsured.

Nope. Birthing our daughter was so expensive precisely because we were insured, on the individual market. Our insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, sold us exactly the type of flawed policy—riddled with holes and exceptions—that the health care reform bills in Congress should try to do away with. The “maternity” coverage we purchased didn’t cover my labor, delivery, or hospital stay. It was a sham. And so we spent the first months of her life getting the kind of hospital bills and increasingly aggressive calls from hospital administrators that I once believed were only possible without insurance.

**Xiahou** · 08-05-2009, 02:35

The Healthy Americans Act

A reform proposal that could cover everyone, help fix Medicaid, and according to the OMB, would be budget neutral the first year and would actually start saving money thereafter. I'm not intimately with this proposal, but it has support from both parties and wouldn't throw us trillions of dollars further into debt. But, we're not discussing any alternatives....

The status quo is far from perfect, but sometimes no reform is better than bad reform- and that seems to be what our current choice is.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 08-05-2009, 02:49

Originally Posted by Xiahou

The Healthy Americans Act

A reform proposal that could cover everyone, help fix Medicaid, and according to the OMB, would be budget neutral the first year and would actually start saving money thereafter. I'm not intimately with this proposal, but it has support from both parties and wouldn't throw us trillions of dollars further into debt. But, we're not discussing any alternatives....

The status quo is far from perfect, but sometimes no reform is better than bad reform- and that seems to be what our current choice is.

Your link is broken, Xiahou.

**Xiahou** · 08-05-2009, 02:57

fixed....

stupid netbook.... grumble...

**Seamus Fermanagh** · 08-05-2009, 03:23

Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost

IThat's an example of why I am concerned about the model. One might be able to judge if private insurance funded healthcare worked if there was a decently free market - the insurance companies would be competing to lower prices and increase cover security. However, they would also cherry pick the very best risks - and so even more citizens would be left without cover.

Insurance uses sub-standard ratings to insure higher risk applicants and/or exclusions of certain specific risk factors in an otherwise complete coverage package. I suspect that you wouldn't see a very great increase in the number of uninsureds, though the premium cost would be allocated quite differently.

**seireikhaan** · 08-05-2009, 04:21

Originally Posted by Xiahou

The Healthy Americans Act

A reform proposal that could cover everyone, help fix Medicaid, and according to the OMB, would be budget neutral the first year and would actually start saving money thereafter. I'm not intimately with this proposal, but it has support from both parties and wouldn't throw us trillions of dollars further into debt. But, we're not discussing any alternatives....

The status quo is far from perfect, but sometimes no reform is better than bad reform- and that seems to be what our current choice is.

I'm looking at on the senator's website, and I'm surprised your in support of it. Link.

Under the Healthy Americans Act, insurance companies will have to enroll every individual who signs up and insurers will be prohibited from raising prices or denying coverage if individuals are sick or are at risk of becoming sick. Previous and existing health problems, occupation, genetic information, gender and age could no longer be used to determine eligibility or the price paid for insurance. Insurance companies will be forced to compete to keep their subscribers healthy.

So insurance companies will be mandated to accept anyone who wants to sign up?

Individuals will choose from a variety of private plans offered in their state, including any employer-based option that may be available to them. Sign-up will be as simple as checking a box on a tax form. Consumers will get help and advice on choosing the best coverage for them from state-based Health Help Agencies (HHAs) and Human Resource departments.

So we're still prohibited from looking for plans out of the state, and we get advice from the gov't on what plan is best....

All employers, along with individuals and the government, will share the responsibility of financing health care. Employers who provide employee health benefits would be required to convert their workers' health care premiums into higher wages for two years after the bill is enacted. Employees, in turn, would be required to purchase private health coverage with their higher wages. To ensure that health care coverage is affordable, the plan would fully subsidize the premiums for those who live below the poverty line. Those people earning between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty line ($10,400 annually per person) would also receive subsidies on a sliding scale to help pay their premiums. The bill also creates a generous standard deduction to help Americans pay for health coverage regardless of whether they get coverage on their own or through their employers.

More mandates. So not only are insurance companies forbidden from denying anyone who asks, but workers are forced to get insurance. And, of course, businesses are required to jack pay up to workers to compensate for the workers being required to pay for insurance. This basically forces every company to provide "health insurance pay" since if workers are all required to pay for health insurance, they're going to only seek jobs where employers have the ability to offer health pay. So basically, either moderate/low income workers are punished, or small businesses.

The Healthy Americans Act gives every American control over their health care choices and their budgets, with a transition to the new system that will be seamless for many people. Premiums will be paid from a deduction on their paychecks just like many other deductions currently withheld. The only change many people will notice is that they can see how much their health care costs them. And any costs incurred for health care will be balanced out by the raise they get from their employer to pay for it.

No, it doesn't give us control because it forces people to buy insurance and won't even open up state lines to offer more choices. And the method of paying premiums amounts to nothing more than another tax, which is either paid by the business or the person.

Employers who don't currently offer health benefits would have to make phased-in "Employer Shared Responsibility Payments," which would be used to provide financial assistance to individuals and families of modest income.

Isn't this something very similar to what obama was proposing?

Now, don't get me wrong, I like that it apparently cuts out costs(somehow, I'm not quite understanding the explanation of how that is), but I'm failing to see why you're in support of it given all this other junk.

edit: to be fair, it does seem more coherent and sensible than some of the alternatives being floated.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 08-05-2009, 12:52

There aren't enough specifics to judge whether this is a good idea or not.

Individuals will choose from a variety of private plans offered in their state, including any employer-based option that may be available to them. Sign-up will be as simple as checking a box on a tax form. Consumers will get help and advice on choosing the best coverage for them from state-based Health Help Agencies (HHAs) and Human Resource departments.

So there will still be wide disparity on what one pays for coverage dependent on where one lives. Where's the "cost control" in that?

Under the Healthy Americans Act, insurance companies will have to enroll every individual who signs up and insurers will be prohibited from raising prices or denying coverage if individuals are sick or are at risk of becoming sick. Previous and existing health problems, occupation, genetic information, gender and age could no longer be used to determine eligibility or the price paid for insurance. Insurance companies will be forced to compete to keep their subscribers healthy.

One of the problems with the current system is that doctors are paid for treatments to patients, but not outcomes *quality/effectiveness of care*. However, where in this new proposal is patient responsibility?
If you become ill because you don't follow prescribed treatments *diet, weight reduction, stop smoking, medications, etc...* should you be covered?

No mention of tort reform...that's a crock.

I want to know, in detail, what treatments/medications for illnesses are not covered or are there no limits?
Will there be out of pocket copayments for medications & procedures?

Can you seek treatment outside your prescribed coverage and pay all costs out of pocket?

Why is there a seperate system for our Legislators or are they covered by this too?

**Xiahou** · 08-05-2009, 23:50

Originally Posted by Shinseikhaan

I'm looking at on the senator's website, and I'm surprised your in support of it. Link.

I'm not really sure where you read that I supported it.

However, a cursory glance seems to suggest that it accomplishes many of the same goals of current proposals without trillions in new debt. That alone makes it better than what's being bandied about now. I'm not yet convinced that it's better than the status quo, but we should jettison the current proposals and use something like this as a jumping off point.

**Marshal Murat** · 08-06-2009, 03:06

Protesters are, in fact, fascists

While the possibility of astro-turfing is no doubt there, I think the way that some representatives (i.e. those I dislike) are imploding as they lash out. It seems more like a paranoid attempt to explain away unfavorable protesters to a healthcare bill that no one really understands, which leads into my next point.

If the Democrats were more intelligent in the "carrying-through" of the healthcare bill, it would be a paper that says This is what the Healthcare Bill will do for you than simply say "Trust us guys, this is in your best interests". I don't really know what is in the bill, and I'm not planning on surfing the web to find an 18-page report on the first paragraph of the bill, let alone a summary of what the bill will do, what it will cover, etc. etc. I will say that the Republican "let's just hate on it because it's a Democrat bill" is a little childish, but I do wish they'd figure out a nice bill to counter the Democrats one.

**Centurion1** · 08-06-2009, 03:18

The protesters are nothing of the sort. This is just the liberal left and their leftist media sources trying to pin everyone unfavorable to the new health plan as being "fascists" which is exactly what Pelosi wants you to think with her swastikas comments, which was just a scummy thing to say.

As i heard Michelle Malkin say today, "the republicans wish they could drum up this sort of response to the health care plan. This is normal Americans saying enough is enough."

**HopAlongBunny** · 08-06-2009, 06:05

Astro-turfing is present w/o much doubt. That's the game.

As usual, the democrats fail re: organization, mobilization, explanation and selling of their ideas.

The bill has been so thoroughly surrounded by fog that those who support it have trouble finding firm footing.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 08-06-2009, 11:12

Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

Protesters are, in fact, fascists

While the possibility of astro-turfing is no doubt there, I think the way that some representatives (i.e. those I dislike) are imploding as they lash out. It seems more like a paranoid attempt to explain away unfavorable protesters to a healthcare bill that no one really understands, which leads into my next point.

If the Democrats were more intelligent in the "carrying-through" of the healthcare bill, it would be a paper that says This is what the Healthcare Bill will do for you than simply say "Trust us guys, this is in your best interests". I don't really know what is in the bill, and I'm not planning on surfing the web to find an 18-page report on the first paragraph of the bill, let alone a summary of what the bill will do, what it will cover, etc. etc. I will say that the Republican "let's just hate on it because it's a Democrat bill" is a little childish, but I do wish they'd figure out a nice bill to counter the Democrats one.

That shouldn't be that difficult. How about something along the lines of the healthcare plan they receive themselves *for life* that is subsidized by "we the people".

**Xiahou** · 08-06-2009, 15:09

Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

That shouldn't be that difficult. How about something along the lines of the healthcare plan they receive themselves *for life* that is subsidized by "we the people".

Nah, that's too good for us peasants.

**Crazed Rabbit** · 08-06-2009, 18:50

Originally Posted by Lemur

The status quo rocks!

Our six-month-old daughter cost over $22,000.

You’d think, with a number like that, we must have used fertility treatments—but she was conceived naturally. You’d think we went through an adoption agency—but she is a biological child. So surely, we were uninsured.

Nope. Birthing our daughter was so expensive precisely because we were insured, on the individual market. Our insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, sold us exactly the type of flawed policy—riddled with holes and exceptions—that the health care reform bills in Congress should try to do away with. The “maternity” coverage we purchased didn’t cover my labor, delivery, or hospital stay. It was a sham. And so we spent the first months of her life getting the kind of hospital bills and increasingly aggressive calls from hospital administrators that I once believed were only possible without insurance.

For games, this sort of situation calls for a RTFM.

People are able to purchase individual insurance for their homes and cars, and they do so effectively by reading the fine print. Yeah, the insurance provider was a jerk about slipping that fine print in there, and maybe there could be a little reform about having to state explicitly all benefits up front. But that's a far cry from the health care 'reform' going on now.

One article from the WSJ:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

How to Fix the Health-Care ‘Wedge’
There is an alternative to ObamaCare.

By ARTHUR B. LAFFER
President Barack Obama is correct when he says that “soaring health-care costs make our current course unsustainable.” Many Americans agree: 55% of respondents to a recent CNN poll think the U.S. health-care system needs a great deal of reform. Yet 70% of Americans are satisfied with their current health-care arrangements, and for good reason—they work.

Consumers are receiving quality medical care at little direct cost to themselves. This creates runaway costs that have to be addressed. But ill-advised reforms can make things much worse.

An effective cure begins with an accurate diagnosis, which is sorely lacking in most policy circles. The proposals currently on offer fail to address the fundamental driver of health-care costs: the health-care wedge.

The health-care wedge is an economic term that reflects the difference between what health-care costs the specific provider and what the patient actually pays. When health care is subsidized, no one should be surprised that people demand more of it and that the costs to produce it increase. Mr. Obama’s health-care plan does nothing to address the gap between the price paid and the price received. Instead, it’s like a negative tax: Costs rise and people demand more than they need.
...
Thus, health-care reform should be based on policies that diminish the health-care wedge rather than increase it. Mr. Obama’s reform principles—a public health-insurance option, mandated minimum coverage, mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions, and required purchase of health insurance—only increase the size of the wedge and thus health-care costs.

According to research I performed for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a $1 trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further. Despite these costs, some 30 million people will remain uninsured.

Implementing Mr. Obama’s reforms would literally be worse than doing nothing.

The president’s camp is quick to claim that his critics have not offered a viable alternative and would prefer to do nothing. But that argument couldn’t be further from the truth.

Rather than expanding the role of government in the health-care market, Congress should implement a patient-centered approach to health-care reform. A patient-centered approach focuses on the patient-doctor relationship and empowers the patient and the doctor to make effective and economical choices.

A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account. It allows people to purchase insurance policies across state lines and reduces the number of mandated benefits insurers are required to cover. It reallocates the majority of Medicaid spending into a simple voucher for low-income individuals to purchase their own insurance. And it reduces the cost of medical procedures by reforming tort liability laws.

CR

**Lemur** · 08-06-2009, 20:53

Hooray for the status quo!

When my son was born in 2006 we could not afford to put him on my employer-sponsored health insurance. It was $236.00 per month (just for him!!!) with $40.00 co-pays, $2,300 deductibles, etc. The insurance was terrible and did not include prescriptions. So, we kept him uninsured.

When he was around 8 months old he woke up with a fever.

We kept him home from daycare and gave him children’s Tylenol. Over two days the fever continued to rise. When the fever hit 102.5 we called his doctor to find out how much a visit costs and if the fever was high enough to warrant the money we’d have to spend. We were broke, barely covering formula, daycare, diapers, etc. The doctor said that it was not considered an emergency and to call back if it went over 103. We were freaking out and scared. I remember crying to my son’s father that our baby was sick but we were too scared of the costs to get treatment.

My son’s fever ended up spiking so high that he had a seizure. We called 911 as he was convulsing and an ambulance rushed us to the hospital. He had an ear infection. The seizure was a febrile seizure brought on by the high fever. Had we brought him to the doctor that first day, this would easily have been discovered and treated prior to the ER trip. However, the doctor demands payment upfront and would have charged us over $100.00 to see him. We did not have the money. Not even close. That emergency trip ended up costing us nearly $3,000.00. We are still paying for it today with $20.00/month payments when we can manage.

He’s nearly 3 now and perfectly healthy. Although he wound up with chronic ear infections and spent his first two years almost constantly on antibiotics. We ended up getting him insured through Florida’s Health Kids/Medicare program. IT IS FANTASTIC. We pay $160.50 per month with absolutely no out-of-pocket expenses. No co-pays. No deductibles. Everything is covered at 100%, even prescriptions. We also get $25.00/month in over the counter medicines, delivered right to our door.

I hope to never again experience the absolute terror you feel when your child is sick and you know that any trip to the doctor or hospital will bankrupt you. I cannot express to you how awful it was.

**Xiahou** · 08-06-2009, 22:40

Why wasn't the baby on SCHIP or Medicaid to begin with? They got him on it eventually- what was the holdup? These anecdotes you keep dropping without comment leave tons of unanswered questions. If someone can't manage to get their baby available healthcare plans, how will reform help?

Again, anecdote is not the singular form of data. But continue with the emotional appeals. We all know that's how sensible laws are written. Think about the children!!!!

**Lemur** · 08-07-2009, 00:31

Yeah, why didn't the family read the fine print? Why didn't the family get the kid on that bastion of socialism, SCHIP? Forget "Think of the children," let's roll with, "It's on you, sucker!"

Three cheers for the Frankenstein creation we have now! Change NOTHING!

As an epileptic I have had a few cases of seizures occurring in public places. While not life threatening, this can often impact strangers intensely. A stranger's first response is usually to call an ambulance and get me to a hospital. When I was younger and putting myself through college by working part time, this simple act of generosity on the part of the well meaning observer would terrify me more than the seizure itself.

A previous commenter related their experience of getting sick in Texas and since that is my home state you can begin to understand my dilemma. The simple act of being picked up off the ground, transported to the hospital and ingesting a Tylenol offered by doctor there would run me over a thousand dollars. When I checked my bill I discovered that the two Tylenols I had ingested alone cost me over 50 dollars.

After the first time this occurred I would come to in a panic asking if an ambulance had been called and if so I would do my best to bolt from the scene before the technicians showed up and did their best to convince me that it was in my best interest to take a ride to the hospital. Since I was working a part time minimum wage job, I could not afford to pay those bills and my credit was destroyed for years. At other similarly less fortunate occasions in my life I have been forced to take part in studies, moderate my dosage without the approval of a doctor or simply do without the medication that makes my life livable. I am fortunate now that I work for a company that provides decent health insurance, but going from one job to the next is highly dependent on the level of coverage I can expect to get.

**Crazed Rabbit** · 08-07-2009, 01:33

Enough of this, Lemur. You're just posting anecdotes, ignoring other posts, and propping up strawmen. Ridiculous. It's drive-by posting, and certainly doesn't help the debate we were having here at all.

Yeah, why didn't the family read the fine print?

Hell yeah, why didn't they - they didn't even know the insurance limit.

CR

**Centurion1** · 08-07-2009, 03:05

You should explain your anecdotes more. They shouldn't be used as the entirety of your statement.............

**Marshal Murat** · 08-07-2009, 03:14

Lemur is tugging at all of our heartstrings, arousing indignation that this could happen in America to people who didn't necessarily do anything bad, just didn't have enough to guarantee that they could keep food on the table and pay for medicine...

**Samurai Waki** · 08-07-2009, 03:21

The only reason why I am for Public Health Care, is because I am tired of having to deal with these Health Insurance

morons who make it their mission in life to screw you at every corner, and then do everything in their power to back out of an already legally binding contract after something has happened which they are entitled to pay. I shouldn't have to threaten my insurance company with legal action every time I have to take one of my daughters to the Hospital, and they won't make the co-pay even though it states clearly in our signed contract that they have too, and then after I threaten them with legal action, they try to settle the coverage for less than what they owe the Hospitals, so then it turns into more work for me to get the big dogs where I intern to start barking, and then they finally relent because they know I'm right, and they don't want a massive lawsuit on their hands. I'm not giving BlueCross my money so that they can wipe their

with it, and nobody should have to deal with these scum bags. Even if our Public Health Care was the biggest piece of

excuse, it would still be ten times better than these greedy privatized mother

.

And I've heard similar horror stories about every other Insurance Company... so, switching isn't much of an option, if you have to deal with the exact same mouth breathers as your current coverer.

**KukriKhan** · 08-07-2009, 03:32

This is why there is no "U.S. Health Care Debate". Rather, we have a shouting match.

I guess it's because August, with Congress in summer vacation recess, is a slow news month, and therefore a slow blogosphere and radio/TV talk-show month.

It's funny to hear the talk shows talk about "the Bill" or "ObamaCare", when there are several bills pending, in both houses, none endorsed by the POTUS, who has offered no Bill of his own, but has gone on national TV to support... health care reform. Or something.

Meanwhile, Fannie Mae quietly wants 11 Billion more Dollars to cover its losses (total bailout so far: $46B).

Distraction? You decide.

**Marshal Murat** · 08-07-2009, 14:42

Peggy Noonan Rides Again

We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.

They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.

In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.

And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.

The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.

What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed”, that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.

The Democratic National Committee chimed in with an incendiary Web video whose script reads, “The right wing extremist Republican base is back.” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement that said the Republicans “are inciting angry mobs of . . . right wing extremists” who are “not reflective of where the American people are.”

But most damagingly to political civility, and even our political tradition, was the new White House email address to which citizens are asked to report instances of “disinformation” in the health-care debate: If you receive an email or see something on the Web about health-care reform that seems “fishy,” you can send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. The White House said it was merely trying to fight “intentionally misleading” information.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Wednesday wrote to the president saying he feared that citizens’ engagement could be “chilled” by the effort. He’s right, it could. He also accused the White House of compiling an “enemies list.” If so, they’re being awfully public about it, but as Byron York at the Washington Examiner pointed, the emails collected could become a “dissident database.”

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.

The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.

And frankly they ought to think about backing off. The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they’re all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what’s going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation’s in crisis, the timing is wrong, we’ll turn to it again—but not now. We’ll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.

You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up. Even Congress’s would. Because they’d look responsive, deliberative and even wise. Discretion is the better part of valor.

Absent that, and let’s assume that won’t happen, the health-care protesters have to make sure they don’t get too hot, or get out of hand. They haven’t so far, they’ve been burly and full of debate, with plenty of booing. This is democracy’s great barbaric yawp. But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s critics.

Somehow that doesn’t sound like a peace initiative.

It’s going to be a long August, isn’t it? Let’s hope the uncharted territory we’re in doesn’t turn dark.

(Personal Bolds for my view of key ideas)

**Tribesman** · 08-07-2009, 15:26

The protesters are nothing of the sort.

Would that be the protesters who are writing to the newspapers without knowing they have written to the newspapers?
Amazing isn't it , concerned citizens putting their name to pieces that they havn't written and don't know about.
So if the Dewey Square Group that is working for the AHIP lobby group mailing fictitious protest letters to the media isn't a case of astro-turfing I don't know what is.

**Lemur** · 08-07-2009, 18:03

Originally Posted by KukriKhan

This is why there is no "U.S. Health Care Debate". Rather, we have a shouting match.

I'm sure I don't understand what you mean ...

My worry is simple: I think the status quo is untenable, but I despair of the Dems in Congress getting reform right. And I don't think the Repubs are negotiating in good faith either; they're just looking to score points (with the exception of a couple of truly thoughtful Repubs, such as Paul Ryan).

The Dems are their usual disorganied, shambolic selves, and the Repubs are playing for a team win, not any sort of improvement in the lives of normal people. So what are the chances that something good will happen? Greater than zero, I guess, but rather lower than 50%.

I feel the same sort of grinding despair that I get whenever I read too much about Israel and Palestine.

**drone** · 08-07-2009, 18:14

Originally Posted by Lemur

I'm sure I don't understand what you mean ...

I see LaRouche is still at it.

**Ariovistus Maximus** · 08-08-2009, 06:32

So, I'm no economist, but I think that Universal Health Care would be easy to exploit.

I'd be glad to hear from supporters of the system as to whether or not my issues are realistic:

1. There would be a tendency for people seriosly needing care to be overlooked or forced to wait.

I would cite in examples Canada, where some patients have died while on the waiting list for major operations, and England, where there is a law that patients cannot be in the waiting room for longer than 4 hours, and as a result sometimes patients have to be left in the ambulance they arrived on.

(These could be rumors as I am not especially tuned in to Canada or the UK.)

2. There could be a tendency for people who really don't need aid to skim off the system. The idea being similar to wellfare, where people who could easily go out and get jobs apply for wellfare simply because it's easier.

Thus, couldn't the system be flooded with moochers and slobs, thereby wasting resources and denying aid to those who really need it?

I mean, look at any such program in the world. If you offer it as FREE, there will be a lot of people who ordinarily wouldn't be interested in it, but just come because it's free and they want to make a buck or because they're lazy.

3. It would not be hard at all for the system to be used as almost a weapon against opposition.

"You don't agree with my policies? Fine! I'll put you on the waiting list for a kydney transplant until you croak. Problem solved."

And it wouldn't have to be some kind of high-level conspiracy either. Supporters of the current administration just happen to be higher on the list by and large...

4. Obviosly it's a considerable amount of money to spend, especially considering the success of other recent measures...

5. In any kind of organization, a thing will become more awkward and sluggish as it becomes larger and more complicated. This would tie in with #1.

As a thing grows larger, there is less time and less resources available to pay as great of attention to detail. The best you can do is compartmentalize it, but it still isn't as efficient.

As in business. A great big corporation simply doesn't have the diversity and flexibility of several small companies. In short, it's like putting all your eggs into one basket.

So why are we in a big rush to put the whole system under one management? Sure, it can regulate easier, and perhaps you would avoid some problems that way, but you would also become less effective in general.

Beauracracy tends to become sluggish as it grows, you know? Look at any other government agency? They often become downright sloppy. Do we really want health care like that, or do we think "Oh, it will work THIS time (even though it hasn't worked before)."

Take schools, for instance. Does anybody want to take the side that public schools are turning out really fine students these days, and that any public school kid is better off than in private school?

**Ironside** · 08-08-2009, 11:21