Posted on 03/15/2006 7:07:52 PM PST by speekinout
The Bush WH has been almost comically inept about getting their message out since Karen Hughes left. The DPW imbroglio is only the latest in the cases where they have been right, and they lost in the PR flurry.
The next (or current) mess is how they're handling the Medicare Part D fuss. Medicare Part D is private plans. That should be very attractive to Conservatives. But we are led to believe (from the Libs) that this is a gov't program. It's not. It's a gov't subsidy to get private plans established for older Americans.
We're left with hoping that talk show hosts will get the truth out. Tony Snow did a fabulous job with clearing the smoke about DPW. (Never mind that he didn't win - I think he increased his audience by being thorough). Does anyone know how to get his attention for the Medicare issue?
I really would hate to see the Libs turn this into a gov't program, and they will, if there is no clear explanation of the program.
Tony hasn't paid any attention to this issue, and I really hope he would. Is there a way to get his attention?
Tony pays very CLOSE attention to the freepers that post on his thread every morning...I would suggest you give that a shot...
And, you could always call his show.
Is that the live thread? I almost never can be on the computer in the mornings. I was hoping for some way that didn't need attention during the show. :-(
ping.
Send him a FReepmail:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/mail-compose?to=Tony%20Snow
Is it really that easy???
Yep!
Check this out too.
Looks like he posted twice on FR today (both times on his own show thread):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?id=4480
The President did a GREAT job getting the message out yesterday and today.
[PROBLEM: Given its partisan bias, the antique media is 'BLACKING OUT' the President as much as possible. Unfortunately, our 'rightwing' talkshow hosts are almost as bad. Most of them spend more time playing DEMOCRAT soundbites and interviewing DEMOCRAT MEDIA WHORES (e.g., Howard Stern) than they spend covering the President. [Did Sean even acknowledge that the President made an historic trip to India. Do any of them ever mention our amazing economy. When was the last time any of them interviewed one of our frontline generals (e.g., Pace or Abizaid) or informed military pundits (e.g., Ralph Peters -- Tony did, but none of the rest bothered). Pathetic!]
http://www.rochesterdandc.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SPECIALS21
One Saturday, I was posting a comment on a thread while Tony was on Fox TV, doing his Saturday show..
When I posted the comment, I included "Tony Snow" in the TOL: box....
I was shocked, when a few minutes later, he posted back to me!!!
THAT is how much attention Tony pays to freepers that post to him.
I didn't see any of the President's messages. I don't have cable. If you don't have cable, you might not know who the President is. :-(
Medicare Part D isn't a private plan. Private companies are intermediaries--and make profit--but just because they are surrogates doesn't mean it is private. You have an odd definition of "private." If it were, then there is no need to have the government involved and there is no need for the government to spend money on it.
These surveys that show senior contentment with the program are interesting--if not bogus. I know no one who is content with the program, especially the 30 or so retail pharmacists I know personally who, without exception, are taking loans to survive or are on the edge of bankruptcy.
The program bought Florida in 2004, but it took away any pretense of the Republican party being the party of competence.
Yes, you do have a point. Gov't does subsidize the drug plans, and they do make the rules. But they aren't doing any more than employers do - they contract with medical suppliers to provide health care to a common group of people (in this case Seniors, instead of employees) and they provide some subsidy of the cost.
The agreement is between the insured and the medical co., and not between the insured and the gov't.
It isn't a stretch to think that this path will lead to a number of medical cos. who can provide ins. to Seniors at reasonable cost, and that socialized medicine (gov't provided) would go the way of Canada and Britain, among others.
1. Patients have to have financial incentive to NOT overuse the system, which much private insurance allows. This problem will decrease in the future as companies increase deductibles. MSAs can help along these lines, but this is not the forum for that;
2. The tort system must acquire some rationality; and
3. Much of hospital costs are due to ridiculous, cookie-cutter regulation. I can write pages of examples--not local, but ubiquitous--of wasted resources that drive costs up, do little good except in rare cases, and suck resources away from the provision of good patient care. In fact, a hospital administrator and I (who are too old to get any backlash and too damned ornery to care) are writing a paper on this very thing. State surveyors and JCAHO surveyors have become ridiculous. And I say that running one of the few operations that I know of that hasn't been cited for any deficiency by any of the three surveying organizations (AOA also--we are triple accredited) in 25 years.
Well, those are not insightful--everyone knows them, so sorry if I sound pedantic. I am with you on privatization; we just disagree on whether Part D is it.
Isn't that the cause of (or at least related to) a lot of the regulation? Rules and regulations are often designed with lawsuit protection in mind. It's not for the benefit of patients; it's for the protection of doctors and hospitals.
Part D is not *the* solution, but it's a steer in the right direction. Seniors are used to thinking of gov't as being the entity that takes care of them. If we can get them used to at least a bit of their medical needs being met in private plans, then maybe they can be nudged to even more. The Advantage plans that are coming along with Part D are even closer to that.
We can't dismantle Medicare, but we can erode support for it. And Part D is the best shot at that. But only if Conservatives stop with the "gov't program" slogans, and get honest about what it is.
To answer your question, I must say that I don't know. There is certainly a correlation between regulation and the rise of legal insanity. You may certainly be right about some areas, but I think the reverse is true in others. How about a symbiosis?
I don't think it is a symbiotic relationship. The medical establishment has no benefit from regulations, except to protect themselves from lawsuits.
Do you have even one example of how regulations benefit the medical establishment other than to protect themselves from lawsuits?
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