Perhaps the President and the Democrats in Congress should listen to the Public and wait a while to see if there are other health care reforms, such as tort and malpractice reform which can help to cut the cost of health care.

Hear Hear Peterr,
Give us what we voted for, Mr. President!

Wouldn’t it be nice. Somehow, though, I don’t expect the “moderates” (i.e., right wingers) to care too much about what their constituents want as long as the big bucks keep rolling in from Big Insurance and Big Pharm. A pox on them and a plague on their families.

Amen!

Money speaks louder than words.

… fear and resentment tribe and the inspiration and progress tribe.

It seems that fear and resentment are a lot more photogenic than inspiration and progress.

For those who’d like to add their money to their words (comments here, phone calls to representatives and senators, letters to the editor, etc.), here’s a good place to do so: Standing Up for the Public Option.

I do not find Dick Cheney the slightest bit photogenic.

Our media likes those shiny objects. Without the internet, we’d have no idea what a small group is doing the noise making.

Bill Moyers last night…talking about the view that campaign financing = free speech is an interesting term for bribery. OK, he said it better than that, but he said “bribery.”

Cripes…well, you are not alone.

Citizen Peterr:

Simple truth Brother Peter…there is no argument that can shadow the bright light of the simple truth.

Thanx Citizen, I know it’s hard to see right now, but if the President jumps on the wave of history, we common folks win the day and if he doesn’t we will win tomorrow when there are no fascist enablers left in the Democratic Party and Rahm Emmanuel is back with the Likud Party.

Bill Moyers is a national treasure.

Why do our president, a Democrat, and our Senate–with a huge Democratic majority–refuse to honor the Democratic Party’s platform?!

What’s the point of putting all of that in the platform if the once-in-a-lifetime Democratic majorities in our government willfully ignore it? I’m exasperated.

I think my concern here is the economic urgency of the situation. We really have a few short years and no more to fix the current problem before this whole system hits a wall. The private insurers don’t care because they’re making off like bandits in the meantime and all they are about are next quarter’s profits, but, seriously, this system is in serious trouble. In a short 8-10 years, it’ll look like the auto companies did in January this year and in 10-15 years the system will be dead.

The Strong national PO only works as a solution today.. maybe for the next year or two, if it works at all. And each year we delay, the PO will have to be all the more strong in its design. It’s already too late for Medicare-for-all, by probably a decade or two. Even regional POs or co-ops may have worked 30 to 40 years ago, but certainly not anymore. In 5 years, with costs going up as they are, if we do nothing now, the only possible fix will be VA-for-all (system nationalizaton). All potential fixes here are time-dated. And the “party platform” needs to be as well.

Democratic voters have been fighting for health care all along. Our supposed elected representatives, not so much.

Suggest anything, hmm?

Except when the fear and resentment folks are DFH’s. Then they are completely crazy and not worth notice. Unlike the teabaggers. But I guess that was your point.

Absolutely.

Max Baucus: did you catch the last four words there? “. . . and a public plan.”

You’re assuming that Baucus is an actual Democrat.

Citizen Blub:

You are right on about the economic immediacy of the health care crisis and that is why I can not believe that Obama will kill the public option…the economy will not be salvagable and there will be no one left to argue that capitalism will save the day.

Bill Moyers recently spoke with financial journalist Maggie Mahar, who labeled our current system “Money Driven Medicine.”

That’s as good a description as I’ve ever seen.

I hope President Obama comes out strong for a public option.

However……the votes are not there in the senate. Sooooo…….what can he do?

It’s a choice between incremental yet meaningful progress vs the whole enchilada.

Which would you choose?

Losing is not an option. If he goes for the whole enchilada and loses it would be devastating (think Waterloo).

I’d qualify that as “Money Driven Madness”. We don’t really have a functioning healthcare system. We have a cross between a casino, a ponzi scheme, and one of Kevorkian’s suicide machines, from an economic-viability perspective. And I’m really not exaggerating.

Gee, I wonder when that platform was drafted by the Democratic Party…

Who would have been the party chair at that time?

Losing is not an option, it’s a guarantee…if the PO is stripped from the bill. Mandates without meaningful, cost-containing strategies are a massive FAIL.

If we are talking about the electoral future of the D party, and I think that is your point about failure not being an option, then we need to think about what will actually draw votes in 2010 and 2012.

Will passing mandates to buy junk insurance do that? Or will seeing Democrats fight fiercely for lower costs and more coverage while R’s are forced to filibuster a hugely popular bill?

I think you (and the D establishment) miscalculate.

He sure did. Great segment. (Only a few minutes.)

Thanks for the Dem platform info, Peterr. Sure would be breaking a promise to the American people if there were no public option, wouldn’t it?

It’s one thing to fight for something and lose; it’s something else to give up before even engaging the fight.

Having health care “reform” without a public option will not put any meaningful pressure on insurance companies to change their ways. If there’s no public option, we will end up losing anyway — it will just take longer to be evident.

The Democratic platform promised a public option. I’d like to see the Blue Dogs in the House and Baucus and his pals in the Senate live up to the platform.

Bill Moyers should be the President…at least Bill is commited to what he says.

LOL. I think it might have been this guy.

I’ll bet all of you didn’t know that it was Bush who signed SCHIP into law. Well that’s what this Republican Congressman thinks. This video is unbelievable.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2795

my suspicion is that Obama knows what the stakes are but may think that if he can put something, anything through now he can fix it in a year or two and preserve the integrity of his mandate in the meantime. Unfortunately, I don’t think the stakes in one man’s gamble should be the whole bloody country.

Party platforms aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Obama and the Democrats plain and simply lied. I do not understand why progressives think that Obama will come around to our views or honor his commitments. Anyone remember what he did on the FISA Amendments Act? And that was before he was even elected. Obama and the Democrats are willing to use us. They are not willing to listen to us or work with us. We really need to break with them. They are not on our side.

is anybody? Look, there are no sides here (well, aside from the Dark Side). Everybody has their own agenda. In this, we have transient allies, not co-religionist blood brothers. Only rethug orks have those. But you’d need to learn how to speak orcish, and it’s a really ugly language ;-)

Citizen TomKaz:

It is a choice between economic collapse and “the whole enchilada”…if you think that there has been any “incremental” progress in the 62 years since Truman proposed national health care or even in the 44 years since LBJ got us Medicare then you are a fool.

It is imperative to defeat the mandate. In an age when incomes are declining, putting a mandate to pay for (overpriced; useless) health insurance before food and shelter is insane. To the extent people qualify for government subsidies, we will have taxpayer dollars going right into the pockets of the insurance giants, at the expense of the real needs of our country. That will actually strengthen the insurance companies by giving them more money to bribe Congress, making future reform impossible.

Dean is not a good guy on healthcare. He keeps equating a public option with single payer. But he also says he is for multiple payers because this will increase competition. The whole idea of competition as it applies to your health and the healthcare debate is out of place. If you are having a heart attack are you going to see who has the best rates for a cath, an angioplasty, or a bypass? There is this idea that healthcare is like buying a car. If you don’t like dealer A, you buy from dealer B. But a car even if it breaks down driving it off the lot is not the same as you keeling over. You can always get another car. Most people will not have a shot at getting another heart. On top of that, in many areas you really only have dealer A to deal with. There is no dealer B.

Citizen Blub:

I don’t think Obama is stupid so he knows that anything that does not work will be hung on him and he will be a one term President but the Democratic Party will survive without him and without the corporatists…it’s just that there will be nuthin left to save.

I disagree. A universal mandate is essential to make the system work, IMO. What we have to do is make sure that the mandate is accompanied by universal portability, universal insurability and a rigid “turn-nobody-away” requirement on both the PO and ALL private insurers. Without ALL of these provisions, reform fails. To be clear, the underlying rationale for the hybrid PO-Private system would be to simulate a tilting playing field with the PO taking on the role of price-setter for all. That is the only way costs will be contained. If somebody can simply opt out and then show up at an emergency room for super-expensive treatment when he or she feels like it, this logic breaks down. We just have to make sure that premiums are means-adjusted (graduated by income, etc).

I’ve always understood party platform wish lists to be nothing more than window dressing. Suddenly, they’re to be taken seriously.

I truly believe the public option gambit was meant to counter sp.

A party platform may not be a legal document or a full legislative agenda, but it provides a clear vision of what a party stands for and what it opposes.

As platforms go, the fact that health care got top billing and the public option was the first policy specifically mentioned, that says a great deal about the priorities of the Democratic party.

I take the platform seriously as a statement of a party’s values and vision.

Citizen alank:

No Citizen, the “public option” was a tactical proposal that would establish accessible “Medicare” for all and allow the private insurance industry to wither on the vine. And that is why the fascists are fightin’ so hard…no public option means no healthcare reform and economic collapse. We’re “all-in” now and Obama knows it.

Citizen Peterr:

You are right on!

Well that’s the point. The whole strategy of electing more and better Democrats was worth trying but it has failed. Those were all just excuses: we can’t act because we’re in the minority, we can’t act because the President isn’t of our party, we can’t act because we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. Now the Democrats can act, and guess what, they are acting exactly like Republicans.

I am talking about a mindset. We keep seeing the Democrats either not acting or acting against our interests. Yet we continue to support them. There is a name for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Exactly…a candidate of smarts and truth…a very powerful combination.

Party platforms haven’t mattered much for years. The candidate doesn’t write em- a bunch of career party regulars does and then they are solemnly paraded out, not read, and forgotten.

It’s really more important what Obama ran on- and that was certainly a public option- right?

It’s an open question whether he can get one now, supposing he’s willing to fight for it. He needs to decide if he can get it through reconciliation (many say “no” for some technical reasons) or if he can get sixty votes for cloture. I don’t see those votes….but maybe he has a trick up his sleeve? Maybe if he gets it in the house bill and not the senate bill he gets another stab at it. Don’t know. This won’t be easy in any event. Obama may have given up after lots of discussion with swing senate votes

Jonathon Alter might be right on this whole thing. http://www.newsweek.com/id/212162

I’m not thrilled about it…….but…….to see DeMint claim victory if this bill goes down is not an option.

What we have to do is

No, it is what Obama and the Democrats need to do, and they aren’t doing it. This is what I am talking about. We keep talking about what the Democrats should do instead of what they will do or are doing. If the Democrats could be moved by reason to accept your ideas, they could be moved equally as well to accept something even more reasonable like single payer. But they aren’t going to accept either the one or the other because the object of the exercise is to sell us out to the insurance companies in exchange for campaign contributions.

You know, Hugh, I don’t think all the work that Jane, eve, slink, and others have been doing on the progressive end of things has been done before. Jane et al. stiffened the spine of the House Progressive Caucus, and gave them the kind of public support to be able to walk in to Nancy Pelosi’s office and say that letting the Blue Dogs run the health care debate will not go by unchallenged. Progressives putting over $400K into the campaign coffers of those who stood up for the public option spoke loudly to folks in DC.

This isn’t doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

I take the platform seriously as a statement of a party’s values and vision.

You’re saying that the Democrats have values and a vision? When did this happen?

Good point on that aspect of competition. Basic costs should be close in most places in the country. Variations will come from salaries, size, cost of business in the area but a heart surgery for example will be close in price on the average. I see competition being important where being on the cutting edge is valuable to a hospital or a clinic to succeed and be able to remain in business. I worry that if there is a government who starts paying for a vast majority of our nations health care costs that they will set prices instead of a hospital setting prices and growth and improvement of care will suffer. Government has the power to help bring down health care costs without taking over for insurance companies. Government hasn’t proven itself the greatest incentive creator in other ventures and although it tries I see poor behaviors encouraged instead of vice versa.

Yes. That is why TomKaz@22’s failure is not an option/something’s better than nothing statement is so unsettling. That’s the D Party line, and it proves, once again, that the D strategy is to support corporate interests above the interests of people in spite of what would bring both change and electoral success.

I honestly don’t think that this is how Obama is thinking about it. He really may believe (I think) that he can FIX an intentionally bad compromise bill, through future action. I’m just not willing to take that gamble.

Health Care Lobbiests – $$$$$$$$’s -> Max Baucus = :) !

Firepuppies – $’s + societies best interest -> Max Baucus = :( .

LOL. The Great Democratic Fiesta of the Bribed.

Why exactly would the spine of House progressives need stiffening, and why exactly did it take money, just like money calls the tune for the Blue Dogs, instead of “values and vision” to get the House progressives to do anything. And let’s be real clear here. This isn’t over yet and remains to be seen just how serious these House progressives are. Will they vote to kill a bad bill? Will just enough peel off to pass it? Because so far I have heard a lot about lines but I have not heard them say they will kill any bill without a public option. And of course even if there were a public option this just pushes the argument back to no one really knowing what would be in it and it being kicked down the road to 2013 and beyond in any case.

Yes.

Sometime around 1792. Do the names Jefferson and Madison ring a bell? It’s gone in various directions over the centuries, but there’s been a vision for the party for quite some time.

Having a vision and living up to it are two different things — no question about it. But to say that there’s no vision at all is ridiculous.

you know what you can do with that corporate harlot dlc talking point.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9361

I see two very important developments in the progressive movement in the healthcare reform “debate”: (1) the strengthening of the CPC (thanks, Jane!); and (2) Trumka saying that Labor will stop the money spigot if there is no PO.

I suspect that there are plenty of D’s in the Congress who would like to do more–much, much more–than they are able to do under the current political system. The D party seems to inhibit any progressive reform.

Jane, nyceve, slinkerwink have done amazing things. This has been important work. But the Party is working aginst them.

there is a vision, and our leaders still do pay lip service to that vision. And, of course, that vision has to be mutable – that’s pragmatism. The problem is how much it’s getting deformed, these days, by outright graft.

I think you think it is new but it is the same in a different light. I have a theory. In the late 60’s and 70’s people took to the streets and protested, some did too much and went to far, these “domestic terrorists”. These people were passionate and started a trend of sorts. They on the whole I would say have good intentions but saw that their methods were not as effective as they would like. Just like in business and life they changed methods and saw trying to get on the inside and change from there was the best way even though it meant a lifetime of dedication. There are many people in government with this mentality at all levels. I am a union member and to some extent see it there to. People get themselves elected, study the polls, see what they should tell they stand for and then each individual will go out and do what they personally think is best. If they have a lobbyist from any industry or group offer to “contribute” to them they now have the money to choose more of what they want and still have money to get the votes again next election

We are spending about 18% of GDP on health care and overing only about 83% of the population. If we cover EVERYONE at the same per head cost- health care goes to 21% of GDP or so and we’ve got deficits up the ass that could be toxic. To “fix” health care without reducing costs is crazy- but that’s what the health care industry wants.

We are paying roughly double what most western nations pay- so we should be able to cover everyone for something like 11% of GDP cutting our expenditures while increasing our coverage- but that will take major surgery and that is apparently not going to happen this time around.

Doing nothing may be better.

I hope they follow through.. This should be the one issue that labor AND management (well, at least non-insurer and healthcare provider and drug company management) agree on.

Why would their spines need stiffening? Because no one likes to feel like they are standing alone.

And the money came AFTER they wrote to Kathleen Sebelius, putting down their marker on the public option. It was a way of saying “We’re glad you’re serious about this, because we are too.”

As for the voting, you’re right: this isn’t over yet. But you can ask the same questions of the Blue Dogs that you ask of progressives. Will they actually vote to torpedo health care reform if it includes a public option?

I’m not sure that the public option is strong enough to do any good- especially after moderates cut it’s balls off.

If we solve the “pre-existing” conditions problem and the “cancellation” problem without solving anything else- then we’ve lost some of the most powerful arguments for reform among the currently insured without a significant victory….might be better to kick the can down the road.

If Obama gets painted as a loser, so be it, he will have earned it.

Well.. to put it brutally. We need to reduce premiums to insurers to zero or near zero in absolute terms AND cut underlying service costs by 1/3rd to 1/2. And we have to get cost growth to the same level of wage growth. Anything short of that fails. Or will eventually fail. No system that requires you to pay 2 to 3 x as much for the same service the rest of the world gets can survive for long. Unfortunately, rethug orcs are anumerical, as well as illiterate.

Peterr (29) — heh. You think?

Hugh (32) — first, let’s acknowledge right up front you don’t like Dean, and that I’m a Deaniac since August of 2003. There will be inherent conflict in what I’m about to say.

But Dean is the guy who came to his followers in every state in late Nov. 2004 and asked, “What do I do? Do I run for POTUS in 2008? Do I start a third party? or do we take the Dem Party back?”

A second run in 2008 would have been doomed to failure because the party infrastructure was rotted away and what was left had been co-opted by the DLC (read: Republican-Lite). It had lost its way and would only undermine Dean yet again as it had in 2003-2004.

A third party would not have a critical mass of followers by November 2008, as Green Party and Independent Party numbers had already shown. We were desperate to stop the Bushistas and we had to get the numbers to make change happen. This was not an option.

But taking the Dem Party back to its roots was an option; we could each of us work from within the party to move it back to the left, and we just might be able to do it in time for 2008. We didn’t know if we could do it in time for 2006 mid-terms, but the odds weren’t good for much else.

And that’s what we told Dean to do, openly deliberated this with him. We started by making him chair of the party, much to the open hostility of the DLC-faction and the entrenched power gods within the party. He did what we asked of him, by rejuvenating the local party with younger organizers and by implementing squeaky-new technology to help party activists.

And he was instrumental in ensuring that the party was in sync and aligned in the right direction.

Since January, though, Dean has not been party chair. The platform he worked under is no longer under the guidance and direction of the same leader, and a leader which a substantive number of us Deaniacs did not support.

Is it at all a possibility that the Dem Party has been once again co-opted by the forces we supplanted back in January of 2005?

YES.

Bad mouth Dean on health care all you want. I’ll think you’re wrong.

But I KNOW you’re wrong when you lump ALL Democrats into the failure bin. Those of us who were Deaniacs were well on our way to remaking the party from the bottom up and the top down. Unfortunately, remaking the Democratic Party is not something which takes one presidential term or two Congressional terms to achieve; it’s going to take nearly as long as it took the Movement Conservatives to remake their party — perhaps not thirty years, but it’s going to take more than two presidential terms in office to realize real change.

And while you’re bad mouthing and lumping ALL Democrats into the failure bin, consider who it is exactly you’re talking about.

Me? Marcy Wheeler? others like us who have been let down by this latest battle for intra-party power but who are still working to effect a generational change in this party?

I’ve committed between 40 to 80 hours a week for the last two years to this end.

What the f*ck have you done to make real change happen?

Instead of fighting for the government to do “the right thing” lets put our energy into having our people do the right thing and not have to ask the government to come in and “help” us all the time. This asking and pleading with the government is what gives them the power and makes so much money and influence flow to them. We give it to them with good intentions but really all the time hurting ourselves. If we focus on our own needs abide by the laws and do good for those around us Government involvement does not need to be so large and truely everyone will be better off. We are told as a child selfishness is bad but I think we as adults can take this too far, Selfishness is bad to a point we must take care of ourselves before all others because if we ourselves need help how can we ever help another. Broke people can finacially help out other broke people but I guess our government propogates this lie as well

Government has the power to help bring down health care costs without taking over for insurance companies. Government hasn’t proven itself the greatest incentive creator in other ventures and although it tries I see poor behaviors encouraged instead of vice versa.

Wait what? Isn’t this backwards? How have insurance companies tried to keep down healthcare costs? They haven’t. They keep their profits up by refusing to pay for healthcare for their insurees and dumping those who are costing them a lot. The primary reason that government provides bad incentives is because it is insurance company lobbyists who are writing the bills. And all of this overlooks what a great job Medicare does precisely in the area of holding down costs. And it overlooks that the VA has done a lot of innovation.

Agree. This is about numbers and figuring out how to get from where we are to where- say- France is- in a reasonable period of time. It probably can’t happen all at once anyway- you can’t displace 18% of GDP at a stroke without causing mayhem- most of that money is going to pay salaries.

Guess all the Blue Dog “Republicans” who had infiltrated the Democratic Convention, were in the bar, laughing at what was being proposed, while they drank their “LOBBYISTS PAID FOR Drinks”!!

I know the grassroots Dems in NM work long and hard on our platform, what we believe the party should stand for. It is tough to get all of our Dem legislators at the state level to stand with us when the time for voting on our issues comes.

The party has long ago lost any ability to demand any sort of enforcement, mostly because the party is not the main source of campaign funds.

However, we have been pushing very hard for the Democratic Party to stand. for. something.

The platform comes from the state organizations, like ours, where grassroots activists do have the say. I don’t know this about other states, but NM has a lot of little people like me who have put our mark on it.

most of healthcare in this country comes from employers- and the dirty little secret that the coverage is “cost plus”. The insurer adds up the employer’s costs for last year- adds in a premium to cover their overhead and profit and there’s the cost for next year.

The insurance company has no real incentive to lower costs (despite all their bullshit to the contrary) and the employer has no ability to lower them- other than by hiring only healthy people.

It’s the WORST kind of system- and it’s OURS!

what on earth are you talking about? Medicare has done nothing to contain healthcare costs. They just contain their own premiums, which is next to useless in the grand scheme of things.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress……res1-1.jpg

I could link that directly to CBO, but they didn’t label their axes. Look, CBO doesn’t make this stuff up, and we have to stop making stuff up for them just because it suits our agenda. Please. That’s a rethug tactic. I’ve only linked this graph 10 times or so on this blog to date, as have others, goodness knows how many times.

The most charitable interpretation you could give to the real numbers is that Medicare has helped contain private sector costs, but if you call 8-9% per year growth cost-containment, then you’d better move to China. At least their economy is growing at a rate that’ll support that level of runaway healthcare cost inflation. In the US, it just means everybody gets his own death panel.. eventually. If we are to succeed in this fight, our arguments MUST be fact based and honest.

spending 18% on health care insurance right? people need to understand the different and separation between health care and health care insurance.

Some say, “Right-Wingers don’t want a Public Option…”

This is NOT TRUE. Look at the polls. There are not 70% democrats, even if you include the independents.

Obama (fakely, of course unless he is totally dumb, which I WONDER), for some reason, accepted the idea that all the conservatives follow and believe Rush, Beck and the corporations. This attitude is something that makes liberals’ eyebrows go up. He’s jiving us one way or another.

Most conservatives I know DO NOT share Rush and Becks love for, and desire to protect (for money) the corporations. They just DON’T. Rush and Beck know this and realize the thin platform of their spin, which is why they vary their message and muddy it up… Its just spin. Everyone wants things to get better and it is now totally obvious that we need single payer and let the insurance companies exist if they want to. But Obama won’t sell that, even though that would separate the Rushies from the conservatives who voted for him, because the conservatives that I know would not really come to the defense of the insurance companies at that point.

It is so obvious that he is, himself, in cahoots with the insurance lobby. Michelle made her living from paitent-dumping, for gods sake. Managed panel freaking care. So did Axelslob. His best buddy is Rahm Emmanuel who’s brother, turns out, is a crazy doctor.

And, most importantly,

NO ONE CARES ABOUT SAVING MONEY, Obama
NO ONE CARES ABOUT SAVING MONEY, Obama
NO ONE CARES ABOUT SAVING MONEY, Obama

DO YOU? Unless it means reducing your policy cost, this argument from Obama is ridiculous. That’s not what he is talking about. He’s obviously talking about limiting care, calling it “harmless”, so the insurance companies can make more profit. And forcing more businesses to pay insurance corporations out of wage money. If you really want to reduce costs TO THE PATIENT, single-payer is the only thing that will.

The only people who want to “save money” are patient dumpers, crazy doctors and insurance companies. Medicare is just fine if they stop raiding it.

WE REALLY WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO SPEND MORE MONEY ON HEALTH CARE, EVEN IF IT MEANS STOPPING AT LEAST ONE FOREIGN INVASION OR NOT SHOVING TRILLIONS INTO THE POCKETS OF WALL STREET.

WE NEED TO SPEND MORE MONEY ON HEALTHCARE. We need to IMPROVE quality. WE CAN AFFORD IT. GOVERNMENT JUST WANTS TO SPEND OUR MONEY ON WARS AND GRAFT FOR THE MAFIA ON WALL STREET.

Over and over Obama has proven, we, the American people, are not a priority for him, like the crooked corporations seem to be.

Obama, why do you hate the American people so much?

(And how many babies did you kill yesterday? My hero, sigh).

Having a vision and living up to it are two different things — no question about it. But to say that there’s no vision at all is ridiculous.

And to tie that vision back to Jefferson and Madison is equally ludicrous. Jefferson and Madison if they saw the modern Democratic Party would run for the hills, or more likely start a new party.

What does that even mean anyway to have a vision? The Democrats have a vision? Oh yes, it’s out there somewhere in the garage under the broken chainsaw and that stack of cardboard, that is if they didn’t inadvertently sell it in their last yard sale. Having a vision is so important.

Rates will continue to skyrocket either way.

You and Hugh both are really grasping at straws on the matter of competition.

There are 1300 health care insurance firms in the U.S. — that’s enough competition, don’t you think?

And yet health care costs have not stabilized, only continued to escalate at rates far above the rate of inflation (which has approached zero of late).

Even the so-called non-profit players in this system are not making a difference, only exacerbating the problem (refer to massacio’s recent post here at FDL on Blue Cross of Michigan and their demand for a 56% rate increase).

And in spite of these ridiculous increases, there are 50 million Americans without any coverage, millions with inadequate coverage, and 18,000 Americans dying every year for the lack of insurance.

There is something dramatically wrong with the competitive model, and it’s going to take an intervention. The for-profit and the non-profit models have failed; it’s time to adopt a backstop which is based on real costs and not on paying for non-value-added bulk like four to five layers of management pulling down 6, 7, and 8-digit incomes.

And as for using a heart attack as an example of a problem with Dean’s system: really, you need to re-examine what he’s said. The problem is not the doctor who will make the decision as to the most effective treatment; it’s all the other layers of administrative crap and an absence of effective best practices which make this choice ridiculously expensive. Think Mayo Clinic versus the health care in McAllen TX.

Why would their spines need stiffening? Because no one likes to feel like they are standing alone

Because no one actually expects anyone to stand on principle alone anymore. Standing up for what you believe is for chumps. All of the “the buck stops here” and “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen” is strictly for PR purposes only. No politician should ever have to walk the walk. It’s all about the talking the talk.

what on earth are you talking about? Medicare has done nothing to contain healthcare costs.

Go to any doctor anywhere. And ask them whether Medicare affects how much they get paid. Any doctor anywhere.

No- that’s for health expenses according to this

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

NO ONE CARES ABOUT SAVING MONEY, Obama

DO YOU? Unless it means reducing your policy cost, this argument from Obama is ridiculous. That’s not what he is talking about. He’s obviously talking about limiting care

Well put. This is the classic case of your money or your life, a choice only Jack Benny would have to think about.

This is politico, so we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.

What we know about the speech
“2) He will not confront or scold the left. “This is a case for bold action, not a stick in the eye to our supporters,” said an official involved in speech preparation. “That’s not how President Obama thinks. The politics of triangulation don’t live in this White House.”

. . .

“4) His comments on a public option are evolving this weekend after heavy blowback from the left about his intention to omit an insistence on it from his plan. Liberal congressional leaders were unyielding on a conference call yesterday, and he’s going to meet with them at the White House early next week. Obama’s aides want to thread the needle of being supportive of a public option — even suggesting he will fight for it — without promising to kill health reform to get it. The left hates the formulation: “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. There are lots of different ways to get there.” ‘

More.

exactly. you can’t apply the rational competition model to an industry where the price elasticity of demand is nearly flat. The only competitive price-setting you’ll get is through the regulatory design of the system (synthetic competition).. which is why I favor the strong PO.

What market share is controlled by say the 5 largest insurers? On the inability of competition to control costs, I am in total agreement with you. Re Dean, like Obama, people hear what they want to hear, but if you actually go and listen to what he says, my description is a fair one.

It has been interesting to watch the Lake in the last couple of weeks. We are back to calling Obama every name we can think of – I thought we had finished with that. The health care bill has not been written yet and we are furious, filled with rage and bile. Why? No wonder the Rs are so successful at stopping everything the Ds want to do – they stick together. Not the Dems – we hate each other and couldn’t agree on the time of day. I think we have all worked hard to let Obama and the Ds know what we think about their efforts – or lack of – on this and we should continue to do that, but we feed the Rs everything they need to work against us. At this point I like very few things that Obama has done but I don’t think he is the devil
in the Oval office. He may be wrong but I don’t hate him.

This should be interesting.

Guests for the Sunday TV news shows
By The Associated Press (AP) – 16 hours ago

“ABC’s “This Week” — White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Bob Dole, R-Kan.; Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
. . .

“NBC’s “Meet the Press” — David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor; Harold Ford Jr., Democratic Leadership Council chairman.
. . .

‘”Fox News Sunday” _ Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Howard Dean, former national Democratic Party chairman; John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.”

More.

Moyers/Hamsher 2012

it’s getting pretty ugly, and it will get uglier. One thing’s for certain, and that is if it continues on the way it’s going, I will NOT vote for another Dem as long as I live. I will vote for the biggest, most clueless fool I can find. They deserve no less.

I may not be able to keep them from taking bribes, and it’s pretty obvious that I cannot make them bring the known criminals to court, but I can sure make my choices heard. As minimal as they are.

I bet I’m not the only one who feels that way.

all three possible cohorts track the same way

http://www.brookings.edu/~/med….._small.jpg

cutting payments or premiums to insurers doesn’t do anything to address the HEALTH CARE COSTS. fudging numbers and shifting payments doesn’t solve a problem of cost, that is where the issue needs to be. Since people don’t pay for their own health care, we don’t seem to care about these costs. We then buy insurance to pay for our health care and yes they won’t care as much as individuals would because they are a go between. Government pays and we all pay with national debt and taxes and yes that does matter a lot to all of us and more importantly future generations. Work on costs and the problem becomes manageable!

I actually don’t find it useful to call the president names. He is still a Dem, and I respect him. I just think his tactics on this issue are misguided and, here I fundamentally disagree with Hugh, its up to us to keep him honest to his promises. Shout loud enough and they will listen. Raise enough money and they will listen. This isn’t an autocracy yet.

And while you’re bad mouthing and lumping ALL Democrats into the failure bin, consider who it is exactly you’re talking about.

Me? Marcy Wheeler? others like us who have been let down by this latest battle for intra-party power but who are still working to effect a generational change in this party?

I’ve committed between 40 to 80 hours a week for the last two years to this end.

What the f*ck have you done to make real change happen?

Listen no one elected Jane, Marcy, or anyone else here God. What I see here is just as with the Village in Washington that question the CW and we get full on defensive mode. I don’t doubt your hard work but all you have to do is look around to see how impervious to change and reform the Democratic party is. And can we please have a little bit less of the chest thumping, what have you done, etc.? This should be about ideas not personalities.

but in this country, its personalities who provide and actualize those ideas. You can’t separate the two. I’m not an idea. I presume that you’re not an idea. And Obama’s not an idea.

agreed.

Blue America a couple of flights upstairs with Florida State Senator Al Lawson

1300 sure but they are not all in competition? I can’t tell my insurance company I’m going to the next state over to get better coverage cause it isn’t allowed. But regardless you are focusing on insurance companies and they are a go between. Their costs are administrative and could be brought down in limited ways such as simplifying paperwork, opening competition on the whole and wage restrictions(but that goes too far for me to mandate cause it is wrong and true competition will bring that about)
The issue is costs of Health care. These costs go up on average 8% – 12% a year for the last how many. Medicare is definitely not fine from that whether the government raids the fund or not. This is basic math. some 50% of these yearly cost increases are directly from medical developments and advancements medically and technologically. We could cut growth in cost by half if we stopped advancing but I really don’t desire that. Government can focus on health care cost reform and make investments in health care not propose a bill to take over, or lead to taking over, also making the insurance companies richer. This is ludicris

Ya might wanna read this then: http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/486

We can no more force Obama to keep his promises than we could influence George Bush.

And Twain, I am not a Democrat. I’m a progressive. There is less and less overlap between the two. And when I talk of the Democrats, I don’t mean the rank and file where much of that overlap still exists. I mean the Democrats in Congress and the White House. It is there that the two are separate.

So you are validating those who voted for George Bush because they thought he was the kind of guy they could have a beer with?

True competition. Last year the dem convention was held in the Pepsi center. You can’t buy a coke there but you can buy a 30 cent pepsi for several bucks. Then again you can go a couple of miles to the ball fields where you can’t buy a pepsi but you can buy a 30 cent coke for several bucks. Love how that competition thing works. /s

that’s a little disingenuous. One can argue that shrub stayed true to his sales pitch. He may not have kept all of his promises, but he sure delivered for his base.

Great post, Peterr! Keep up the good work!

that’s a little disingenuous. One can argue that shrub stayed true to his sales pitch. He may not have kept all of his promises, but he sure delivered for his base.

None of this explains anything about your reliance on personality. Bush delivered to his base. Obama doesn’t. And personality has what to do with this?

The promise for a public plan is mentioned in the Obama campaign’s healthcare document.
It was called:
BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN’S PLAN TO LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS
AND ENSURE AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE HEALTH COVERAGE FOR ALL

You can still read it right here: HealthCareFullPlan.pdf

The public plan is mentioned eight times.
Page 2: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that plans that participate in the new public plan…
Page 3: Providers who see patients enrolled in the new public plan…
Page 5: increase use of generic drugs in the new public plan…
Page 5: requiring all large employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees or towards the cost of the public plan…
Page 5: Through the Exchange, any American will have the opportunity to enroll in the new public plan or an approved private plan…
Page 6: The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan
Page 6: Participating hospitals and providers that participate in the new public plan
Page 8: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will ensure that all Americans are empowered to monitor their health by ensuring coverage of essential clinical services in all federally supported health plans, including Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the new public plan.

Candidate Obama promised to close the donut hole in Medicare.

Candidate Obama promised the plan would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with drug companies. It is in all their documents and the campaign and debate videos I embedded over here.

Plus Candidate Obama promised to hold all the hearings on C-SPAN

We are going to set up a table just like this. A little bigger. And we’ll have doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, patients rights advocates, employers, labor. Drug and insurance companies will have a seat at the table. They just won’t be able to buy every single chair. And we will have a public process for forming this plan. It will be televised on C-SPAN.

Read a more about the Obama campaign promises here.

Thanks, Peterr, Rayne, and Phoenix Woman. I learned more.

And DonkeyHotey too! That’s devastating stuff ~ how many promises can one ticket break?

There IS on reform and democrats dont even have to wait for it, IT WAS SUBMITTED IN MARCH, repubs and democrats have been hiding it ever since. It would simply repeal the Mckarran act whic exempted the insurance industry from regulation and anit trust actions bythe justice department. It would break up the indutry monopoly and help lower cost. Its HR 1583

http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=h111-1583

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1583/show

If we had any reason to believe that the administration are actually committed to meaningful reform and not just trying to check off a box and expand the insurance monopoly, which most of us dont believe, you would be right, except that we would still be in the position we are in now because, to soften our position and go along to get along would mean the worst bill its possible to imagine.

Waiting for CHANGE that we can believe in . If obama caves on the Public Op[tion then God help us if a forgin Power attacks us he may just fold on that also.

If there were any chance to fix a bill, it would have to be a bill that doesn’t strengthen the insurance and pharma lobbies and their financial wherewithal or the opposition. The way this is heading, the lobbyists will end up with more money and power to fight and the opposition will be emboldened to just get crazier and do whatever it takes to defeat Obama. If you have to do next to nothing in these circumstances, those will make nothing look like a good alternative to the pressure to undo any good that was done.

Whether in the platform or not, the citizen’s desires will be disregarded by inept leadership, half-hearted ‘negotiations’ and decisions to put the financial sector above people, the state of the economy above welfare of workers and political machinations above solutions to real-world problems. Look for further than the Obama ‘health care reform’ debacle.
Single Payer: Achieves all stated goals: Cuts costs, increases coverage, focuses most health care dollars on providing health care. Status: Eliminated from consideration before ‘negotiations’ began.
Real Public Option: Achieves some stated goals. Status: ‘Compromised Away’
Psuedo-Public Option: Achieves nothing. A ‘political option’, but does not achieve cost reduction; instead increases enrollment to the existing system, thereby, increasing the % of GNP devoted to health insurers and big pharma profits and continuing to reduce the number of health care dollars actually spent on providing health care. Status: Under active consideration.
Coops: Achieves nothing. A ‘political option’, that does not achieve cost reduction, increased coverage or efficiencies in the existing system; but will increase the % of GNP funneled to profits for health insurers and big pharma. Status: Under active consideration.
Trigger: Allow a prolonged period for the Republican noise machine to manufacture lies and prey on people’s fears. Status: Under active consideration.
Now that all options which would result in cost cutting, increased access and improved efficiencies are no longer under consideration, which option will the great negotiator choose as his ‘health care reform’? Whether this was in the platform or not, without leadership, it would be meaningless – observe.

You say they “can” control costs. But, in Texas they did tort reform (and God knows if there was ever a state where they would do tort reform hardly, it’s Texas) and they still have the most expensive city in the country for health care. Their tort reform didn’t do much of anything.

Why do people charge so much? Because they can.
Why do people lower their prices? Because they might lose the customer.
What if the customer has nowhere else to go? The provider has a monopoly.
What if the customer has another choice? The provider has competition.
Competition for the customer’s business is key and the public option is that.

If we had national competition things might be a bit better, but as things stand in most states there are only a couple of insurers and little fear of losing customers.

Without doing the right things in office all the campaigning, debating, fund raising, advertising and all the rest is a waste of time. I can’t imagine why anybody in the states with Dem senators who won’t follow through would ever spend a day (or a nickel) working to get them re-elected.

Promises are just that. Action (the follow-through) is what we’re in it for.

I disagree. Dems are NOT acting just like Repubs. The Republicans wouldn’t have even pretended to do health care reform. The Dems have gone a long way down the road and we just need to see this through.

Couple of years ago. Maybe you weren’t paying attention at just that moment. But, you might be right that it’s a rarity and that this moment may never come again.

You’re wrong.

Work on costs and the problem becomes manageable!

That’s precisely what the current reform legislation does.

What is cost to consumer related to? Cost of production (plant, salaries, supplies, etc.) plus profits. What restrains the profits? Fear of losing customers? Competition is key.

I should also add, there is another way of looking at the economics.

We hope to cover more people. We’re utilizing many of the current expenditures in different ways to achieve that. More product (health care) to more people without increasing money flowing through that industry in a commensurate amount means lowering cost per person.

If we increase the value (product per dollar ratio) then, as you said, it will be manageable. Even if we spend as many or more dollars than now (17% of GDP) it will be money well spent. If we can find ways to increase competition to lower the overall consumer’s costs while serving more customers with better care, then it’s a huge win.

More care (for nearly everyone).
Better quality care.
Hopefully lower, but certainly stable, costs we can afford.

Those are the president’s goals and I believe they’re just what we need. The debate about reform shows most people agree.

shrub stayed true to his sales pitch. He may not have kept all of his promises, but he sure delivered for his base.

Earlier this evening I was reading a news article about a new book coming out about the economic meltdown starting last year about this time. In the article it mentions that in one day, in 5 minutes, $1 Trillion was lost in the stock market when the House Republicans refused to help pass the TARP bill. In 5 freakin’ minutes $1 trillion dollars…poof, gone.

It’s a good thing they didn’t get Social Security put into the markets. I’m guessing it was Bush’s friends who got that Trillion. Yes, he delivered to his base, but is it really worth it when the entire economy of the world goes into recession and nobody makes that trillion up over the next year or two or three?

I think all-in-all Shrub was the biggest disaster America has seen short of major disastrous wars like Vietnam, the Civil war and perhaps WW I. If the historians don’t get this right they should be horse-whipped (yes, whipped with a big ‘ol horse).