An interesting development indeed…

It is true that you really can’t believe everything that you read. Some sources are saying that a public plan is ‘off the table’. While other Democratic leaders (Speaker Pelosi) are saying that the public option is alive and NEEDS to move forward. This has become the essence of a rock and a hard place.

If the Democrats abandon the public option, then their base will be livid, feeling like they’ve missed a huge opportunity considering they have a liberal president and overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. If they move forward with the public option they anger a majority of their constituents and resign themselves to a possible landslide defeat at the polls in 2010.

What to do?

This all just adds to the fact that we have no idea what will be in the final healthcare bill, which means when it finally does come out I am anticipating a 1500+ page behemoth of a bill that will be shoved through congress as quickly as possible. If that is the route they attempt then it will be essential to bombard the capital switch board with angry calls to slow down. There have been some encouraging developments, but we don’t know what we are actually going to get until we see the legislation. It is essential that we see it for an appropriate period of time.

This whole exercise has been a testament to the power of the people’s voice. But don’t go quiet now. We don’t have a bill and we have very vague answers on what is going to be in the bill. Stay on top of it.

Jail for Prayer?

Six months in jail for saying a prayer. Is this Iran... no, wait it's Florida.

Read it here.

Kind of funny that when people read the first amendment,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

they see the part about "respecting an establishment of religion" but they miss the part about "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Sarcasm and straight talk

(warning! sarcasm ahead)

What are our expectations on healthcare reform? The President tells us that his bill will give us the best care in the world, cover everyone, help us get the deficit and spending under control, get rid of waste, bring lower premiums, more coverage, outlaw denial for pre-existing condition, and eliminate huge premiums and out of pocket expenses.

Wow! Where do I sign!

He also promises that it won’t lead to government rationing, long lines, long wait times, denied care, euthanasia, or tax payer funded abortion.

Wow! Perfect! I love it. It sound almost too good to be true!

Wait a minute… didn’t my parents tell me something about things that sound too good to be true… hmmm… oh yeah - they usually are. But come on, this is a smooth talking politician that is telling me this. It’s GOT TO BE TRUE! That’s why the bill is so BIG, it has to encompass all of this GREAT stuff. Of course it needs to be passed quickly, we want that great care and reduced cost to start as soon as possible. This is going to SAVE OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!!

Kind of like the stimulus saved our economy and kept us out of 8% unemployment. Wait, what is unemployment again?

But come on this isn’t like that boondoggle of a stimulus plan. I mean that bill was RUSHED through before anyone read it. It was over a thousand pages. That’s totally different than this one… oh wait.

(sarcasm stops here)

Here is what we know so far about the ‘proposed healthcare reform’.

- The bill isn’t finished. What is available now in the form of HR3200 has already changed and we don’t know what all of those changes are. Even in its current form it is over a thousand pages long and not exactly easy reading.
- We’ve had a bunch of promises and assurances made by the President and members of congress that are obviously not reflected in the current bill as written.
- We’ve heard some very scary stuff that can be seen as a logical progression or interpretation of what is in the current bill.
- Both the bill and the promises made by the administration would grow the government, cost huge amounts of money that we don’t have, and push us further and further into red ink, rather than balance the budget.
- Some changes to healthcare systems are irreversible. Look at the UK, they have a population of approximately 61 million people. Their NHS employs over 1.4 million people and they are constantly complaining that it isn’t enough. They have almost as many ‘administrators’ as they have healthcare providers. How many will the US, a country of 330 million, need? Exactly. Once you go public it’s hard, if not impossible to change course.

If you haven’t attended a town hall event, or called your congressmen, or written them an email or letter, then you need to. Tell them to stop the current reform and if nothing else, DO NO HARM to the current system. Propose changes, but make them clear and reasonable changes that get the government out of healthcare, reduce costs, and expand insurance options. Don’t shove some mammoth, government run overhaul down our throats and don’t lie to us. We’re tired of it.

Are you afraid?

Do you fear your government yet?

I know, fear tactics from a right-wing, reactionary conservative, but I submit a couple of videos for your consideration.

Here is the first. It’s an interview with the deputy White House press secretary who fails repeatedly to answer the question. Fortunately Fox seems to have a few more legitimate journalists on staff and she makes him squirm… a lot. But as you watch this think for a minute. If the purpose of all of this “fishy email” stuff was to get “misinformation” on the healthcare system and “correct the mistakes” then they could have had a dozen or so White House staffers cover twenty or thirty of the top right-wing blogs and then put together a webpage that gives the “myths” and then their side of the story. Then there would not have been any issue with retaining emails or giving the “big brother” appearance. For all of their faults, these are smart people, I’m sure that came up. So why have people send in emails?

You know I went to a class on running for political office a while back and one of the things that they really emphasized was building databases of voters. Both those that will vote for you and those that will vote against. It can be useful information. If a junior staffer hasn’t been told to list and catalog the email addresses they have received I would be SHOCKED.

But watch.



Hmmm….

This next one I really have no explanation for. I’m not a huge GB fan, although I agree with most of the stuff that he says. This, quite frankly, is just strange and at the very least, extremely disturbing. Please do not try this at home. Just think of all of the things that you have on your home computer from TurboTax records to personal emails… even fishy ones.

The 'Thinking Liberal' Chimes In

Paglia, the ‘thinking liberal’ that I have talked about before has, well, a scathing piece for President Obama, the Democratic congress and especially Speaker Pelosi. She starts off saying that she does not have buyer’s remorse over Obama, but she is obviously not happy with what is going on. She was also in favor of the Hillary-care back in the nineties, but isn’t happy about the current scheme. I really couldn’t have said much of this better myself, so grab your dictionary, here is a quote:

But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have
nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily
cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it,
Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling
on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes
belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face
it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by
profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks?
And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues
to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic;
many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy
required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be
Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama
thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape
and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering
economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

She also was not real pleased with the ‘fishy email’ business.

But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.

Ouch.

So what SHOULD we be asking our Reps for?

I have asked repeatedly for anyone reading this blog to call their representatives and tell them that we DON’T want this massive government overhaul of the healthcare system, but I have been very limited in chiming in on what we SHOULD be requesting. Our healthcare system works for a majority of the people right now. But it isn’t perfect and it probably never will be. Any system encompassing one sixth of the US economy and affecting the lives of every single citizen is going to have some flaws here and there and some things to complain about. There are some very easy, straight forward, and extremely effective things that we can do to improve the system and drive down the cost for EVERYBODY.

The first thing is competition. Competition is our friend and a huge, untapped gold mine in driving down healthcare costs. Right now federal and state laws limit competition in the insurance market. They do this in a number of ways, primarily by limiting the players in the game. Break open the gates and allow every market in the country to be open to any insurance company willing to compete in it. When you have more companies competing for business you have lower costs and you get improved service because companies try and set themselves apart from their competitors. With a more competitive market companies are forced to control their costs more and they become more efficient as a matter of necessity. It’s a beautiful thing.

The next step is to kill mandates. Mandates are required coverage on any insurance plan. They sound really good; like requiring insurance companies to cover mammograms for all of their clients. The problem is that half of their clients will never need a mammogram. Why should plans that only cover men have mammogram coverage? Leave certain things as an option that people can add to their plans for certain members.

Another one is cost limits, which are also included in HR3200. This means that insurance for someone that is going to use it extensively can only cost ‘x’ (usually x = 2) times as much as someone who will need very little coverage. For instance you have a college that is near a retirement community. There are laws in some areas that say that the cost for the college student, who may never even use his insurance, has to cost no less than half the price of the insurance for the person in the retirement community who may use their insurance every week. This may drive down the price of insurance in the retirement community (to a very small degree), but it sends the cost of insurance for college students through the roof.

Change the tax laws to disconnect health insurance from the employer. This is a HUGE one, because it allows people to be directly responsible for their healthcare choices and allows them to choose the plan that is best going to suit their family. This is also huge in opening up the market and encouraging companies to offer more reasonable packages for different situations.

Start early. Young people should be able to start early with healthcare savings accounts, which are like ultra low risk investment accounts; small yield, no principle risk, completely portable, and need to be federally insured. The money going in should be tax free and employers should get a tax break for contributing to it. Hand in hand with this is catastrophic coverage, which only covers that scenario. You go to the doctor, you pay directly from your HSA. Most doctors will give a discounted rate for people who pay immediately and directly without having to file insurance claims - lower cost. Plus, because you are managing it yourself you are only going to go to the doctor for things that are significant. You think you have strep, you go to the doctor and pay for it out of your HSA. You fall and brake your arm - it comes out of your HSA. You are diagnosed with lymphoma - your catastrophic coverage kicks in. For younger, healthy people, this is really the best type of care; lowest cost, you get to use whatever doctor you want, you are covered for the unexpected, and you have control over your healthcare.

True mutual plans. Mutual plans are basically insurance companies owned by the members of the plan. These are NOT the government subsidized, government regulated plans that some congress members are talking about. They are truly independent bodies of people that all get together and share healthcare costs like any type of traditional co-op.

Pooling plans. This could be a great option for small businesses who can pool with other small businesses to get the best deal on insurance plans for their employees. The more people covered, the best deal possible. It gives small businesses the same leverage that big businesses have.

For me these are the best options going. Some of these things are available in some markets and some are not. They need to be available EVERYWHERE. When we open up competition, extend the number of options for patients, and get government regulations and bureaucracies OUT of the way, costs go down and coverage improves.

The next thing to tackle after these changes is tort reform. None of the bills proposed so far even touch this issue because too many congressman receive too much backing from ambulance chasing trial lawyers (sorry, I was doing so good at not ranting in this post too..). Quite frankly both parties, but primarily the Democratic party receives HUGE donations from tort lawyers NOT to fix the system. This has to be addressed to deal with costs.

Medicare and Medicaid HAVE to be reformed. I’ve mentioned it before but I’ll say it again, because they limit fees to the doctors, that are BELOW costs in some cases, they drive up the costs for the rest of us. These are CRUSHING plans. The good thing is that if we make the changes I’ve already suggested then the overall cost of insurance coverage will go down and you will have fewer people on either Medicare or Medicaid. Just imagine a couple who have not had to deal with significant health problems in their family, but they and their employers have been contributing to an HSA for thirty or forty years- that’s huge. If they pass away without using up the funds, let them pass that on to their children tax free.

These are the things that we need to be pushing for. They don’t all have to go into one MASSIVE, unreadable bill. They can be individual and they can be over months or even a couple of years. Don’t crush the system and reform it, just make improvements that are REALLY going to make a difference in the positive direction for EVERYBODY.

Capitation

Capitation.

I know it sounds like a horrible term, and it is, but not in the way it sounds. Capitation is mentioned numerous times in HR3200, the current and only published bill on healthcare reform. It is mentioned on page 125, 333, 451, 452, and 778 as one scenario that they will be exploring to drive down costs.

Capitation is where each doctor has a certain number of patients, given out in a number of ways, either by geographic area, patient preference, whatever. The doctor is paid based on how many patients he has. Not how many he sees, but how many he has.

See any problem with that?

Sound familiar to anyone?

This is a very similar program to the way that HMOs use to operate. Doctors are not rewarded by how many patients they actually help, in fact the fewer they help the more attention they can give them and quite frankly the less stressful it is. The rest of the patients are simply told to wait. Doctors are encouraged to handle the patient issues as much as possible on their own; if they refer a patient out to a specialist then the normal payment that they receive is actually reduced; repeating a lot of the issues that made HMOs so infamous.

Some refer to this as the “Walmart” method of healthcare. Not only do the doctors not have any incentive to actually see patients but the more patients that they see the more money it will cost them and hence LESS money that they receive. That means there is actually an INCENTIVE for them to see fewer patients, perform fewer tests, less lab work, and refer patients to specialists less often.

That doesn’t mean that doctors are suddenly going to turn into these money hungry people that deny patients healthcare, but they would basically be punished for doing a better job and rewarded for being lazy. That’s a recipe for horrible healthcare.

IT'S NOT ABOUT RACISM!!!!!!

I am so tired... let me say that again, SO TIRED, of being labeled racist because I don't agree with someone's policies or agenda.

It has nothing to do with race!

It has everything to do with economics, liberty, small government principles, concern for family and future generations, and what's that other thing... oh yeah COMMON SENSE!!

The race card has been played and over-played. No body's buying it any more. Give it up and move on to a real debate about ISSUES, IDEAS, and POLICY.

People Are Mad

Well, despite the push by the White House to tamp down on the “disinformation” that comes from people actually reading the current healthcare legislation, the word is getting out and getting out big. At townhall events around the country (which you can find a list of here) representatives are hearing from their constituents, both for and against these sweeping reforms.

And people are mad.

I don’t advocate violence at any of these meetings. I really don’t think that this is the most effective of way of being heard. Debate passionately, but act gently. I can’t say that the President has helped in this regard considering that he has been advocating for the ‘in your face’ approach since before the election.


Quite frankly, I understand why people are passionate about this and I understand why people are so mad. I’m mad. Not just at the legislation but at the treatment of voters who are opposed to the legislation. I thought under President Bush dissent was patriotic. Why has it suddenly become racist? People are mad at healthcare reform and the President is pushing it – and hard. Why wouldn’t he and his staff EXPECT that people would be mad at him for doing this?

Unless there is going to be new legislation suddenly sprung on us after the July recess that is DRASTICALLY different than the 1000+ page HR3200 that is already out there, then the President is being very deceptive in what he is telling the people. That upsets me.

Where do all of the new, breakthrough drugs in the world come from?

Where do all of the new procedures, technologies, and therapies in the world come from?

So… where will they come from when the incentive is gone and the government is driving the bus?

Find your reps. Find their townhalls. Call their offices. Make your voices heard.


*****Update: Great column by Peggy Noonan today along these same lines.

Welcome to the AARP 'Listening' Session

Nancy Pelosi says that all of these concerned people at town hall meetings are paid stooges from insurance companies. Actually her exact words were that they are "astroturf". Nice, eh?