Posted on 07/17/2009 9:01:32 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
This was the week that was for Barack Obama's efforts at health care reform (although many more will follow). The following five developments made clear that America is not prepared for what it must do, although the outlines of what this is are emerging.
(1) Liberal Americans ask the question, "How can a civilized nation fail to provide health care coverage for so many of its citizens?" Their answer is a government sponsored health care system like those in European countries. But while HuffPo readers say "aye" to a single payer, universal coverage system, they say "What, me worry?" to the fact that the existing, inadequate American system is already twice as costly as comparable European systems.
(2) But the American idea of reform will increase - not reduce - health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed reforms would cost $1 trillion (a figure we have become strangely used to), but would not curtail skyrocketing health care costs, as the Obama Administration has claimed. The non-partisan CBO has thus become for Congressional leaders the enemy of the people. When the director of the CBO, respected economist Douglas Elmendorf, testified before the Senate Budget Committee that health care legislation proposed by House Democrats and the Senate health committee would not slow what he called the unsustainable government spending on medical care, he was immediately attacked by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi - just like stem cell and global warming researchers are attacked by Republicans.
(3) Americans are STILL not ready to question the liberal bromides of "more care all the time." To take one of scores of examples, research has shown that the decades-long campaign to encourage screening for cancer (like that for prostrate screening) has shown no benefits for those screened, and may be a net health care loss: According to the Times,"For many cancers, early detection efforts offer little benefit at high expense, and present a real risk of harm." This reality that the care we clamor for is often the feather Dumbo clasps in his trunk is repeated time and again in assessments of the sacred cows of American health care.
(4) But, finally, pundits and knowledgeable commentators are presenting to Americans that their idea of health care is grossly distorted. Paying for wildly expensive treatments whose results are uncertain and, even when successful, leave patients (especially neonates and the elderly) with disastrously reduced quality of life, means withholding payments for better-guaranteed forms of care for people who may remain healthy and productive for years. For the first time, an important article in the Times makes the argument for health care rationing, also called managed care - two American bugaboos.
(5) And the Obama administration is going down the tubes on health care (as did the Clinton administration before it) out of a fear of making clear that we will all have to do more with less. Although this is not a politically viable message, we are witnessing how the inability to come to grips with this reality will lead to another failed administration.
One small victory is right around the corner, Obama won’t get the vote before the August vacation for the Congress.
We all need to let our congressmen know how we feel!
“Although this is not a politically viable message, we are witnessing how the inability to come to grips with this reality will lead to another failed administration.”
We can only hope! Obama is a man who has no clue how to run anything, much less the United States!
Damn rights!
Somebody has been hittin' the happy smoke.
We just have to take it one day at a time for the next two weeks for the House - and for the next three weeks for the Senate.
We just have to make sure its own flaws kill it
We can recharge in August and take up the new fight in September.
Remember Obama said that if we don’t get national health care this year - we won’t ever get national health care
The one thing I agree with him on
No, our system is broken....
Free care for the poor and illegals
Government setting rates for Medicare and Medicaid
Insured people getting less
Cash payers get screwed
0bama has absolutely no concept of what it is to be an American.
In fact, he hates and detests all things “American”. And that is a despicable reflection on what America has become.
The first “American Idol” imposter-as-president.
This whole healthcare thing enrages me! I can’t believe that moron is going to change the way I seek & use medical care in this country.
Obama must be stopped.
I contacted my Congressman’s office in Washington and Murfreesboro. I also sent his numbers to many of my co-workers. He voted for cap and tax and his office says he is “deciding” on this bill. I informed them an uprising against him is mounting and this is likely his last term if he votes for this (regardless of the Senate vote).
Good analysis Jim. Wow, you are on a roll tonight.
Yeah, that’s the way I feel. It’s all bad news with them taking over corporations, banks, etc. Raising taxes, raising costs, socialist policies, cutting defenses, etc, but somehow that was all impersonal.
Now they’ve made it personal. Now they’re coming after you and me and our family members. They’re going to start making all of our personal health care decisions for us? Some postal worker is going to decide whether or not I’m worthy of health care, even if I want to pay for it myself and don’t want their damned government care? They’re going to tell me private care is illegal?
Over my dead body!!
(yeah, I’m sure they’d like that)
I think of it as having to go to the DMV to get healthcare. We know how efficient they are.
Jim... buddy: do NOT subject yourself to the mindless gibbering slopped all over the HuffPo. It’s icky. ;)
Yes, I realize that banking, lending, wall street, auto and other businesses are under attack right now.
However, let me explain it like this: I was a slow convert to selling “Medicare Advantage” plans, which actually privatize Medicare. This is the plan that Newt Gingrich was unfairly quoted as saying it would cause old fashioned Medicare to “die on the vine”.
The primary benefit of these plans, to the consumer, is that they have an “out of pocket maximum” of only a few thousand dollars, depending on the plan. By way of comparison, there is NO limit to what you might have to spend, out of pocket, on regular Medicare without a supplement of some type.
Obama LIES about the “Medicare Subsidy” given to insurance companies that sign up Medicare Advantage customers. The truth is, this amount is about $830 per month, based on the average medical claims that Medicare pays out per Medicare Beneficiary in the PREVIOUS year. Note that this figure does NOT include the administrative costs, to the government, when the government RETAINS Part A and B services.
In other words, inflation is always absorbed, at least one year or two years back, as the “subsidy” to the insurance companies is based on previous claims years, not the current claim year. Also, the insurance company must absorb the costs of explaining the plan and the cost of customer service, claims and phone calls to the plan.
Magically, the government seems to think it can get away with saying that these costs don't exist at all, for traditional Medicare A and B. The government only reimburses the insurance companies for claims, not for administration.
Now, lets get to CMS, or the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and their virtual WAR on insurance agents.
We used to make about $500.00 per Medicare advantage plan sold.
Earlier this year, CMS told us that was too much money, and cut our commissions to $400.00 per plan, a 20% cut in pay. This is after many of us had already bought advertising and marketing plans based on the posted commission rates with various companies, when projecting our personal budgets.
Oh well, we absorbed the cut.
Then CMS made that cut retroactive, TO THE 15th OF NOVEMBER, 2008!
Then, CMS decided to redefine the term “renewal” to mean any year after the first year someone is on Medicare services. In other words, if I met a 70 year old who had been on Medicare for 5 years, and I had never done business with that person before, and I sold that person a Medicare Advantage or Part D drug plan, that person would generate “renewal” commissions and not “first year” commissions.
Now our Medicare Advantage commissions had been cut again, from $500 to $400 and now to $200.00 per sale.
Our Part D drug commissions went from $60 to $50 and now to $25 on people over age 65!
I know insurance agents who are “in the hole” by $10,000.00 or more.
Yes, this cut in pay was also made RETROACTIVE to 15 November 2008, the beginning of the Annual Election Period for the 2009 plan year.
The want to bankrupt insurance agents, it seems.
(Yes, most of us are Republicans, just like most car dealerships are owned by Republicans!)
Yes, it is true, CMS is in the process of reconsidering some of these issues, but they have, effectively SILENCED a large number of insurance agents, who will have trouble writing checks to political candidates or contributing to PAC’s that might fight this stuff!
Any “resolution” to these CMS policies will not happen until long after the Congressional vote on health care!
The Puffington Ghost accurately described its Messiah and his plan!
read later
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.