the goal here is to get universal health care that we can afford. a 25-30% surcharge for corporate welfare for the insurance companies does not cut it.
Posted by selise at September 17, 2007 01:38 PMAmen Steve!
Mrs. snark is in the healthcare industry so this is a topic of conversation amongst us and our friends all the time. There is about zero support for wholesale tearing down of the current system flawed as it is. Anyone who thinks it can be done successfully against the objections of medical professionals and the insurance players is fooling themselves. As Steve says, they need to be kept at the table and invested in fixing the system. Anyone truly interested in improving healthcare in this country should realize that.
Posted by snark at September 17, 2007 01:44 PMIt's hard to endorse rewarding the greedy in order to cover the needy ... but that seems to be the American way.
Posted by janinsanfran at September 17, 2007 01:50 PM..that reflect months of work talking with stakeholders, many of whom who sunk her last attempt at reform.
They sunk it before, and they will sink it again. They're still at her table because they've seduced her the only successful way available to seduce Hillary--pandering to her ambition to be president. Different seductions for different people. And again, she will let the token attempt die a silent death, to never be heard of again as long as she's president. It's a dance: she pretends to try, they pretend to undermine her, she pretends to be regretful as she lets it die.
Posted by at September 17, 2007 02:22 PMsnark, i'm all for including the concerns of the medical professionals, but the insurance players are just parasites when it comes to health care.
Posted by selise at September 17, 2007 02:40 PM...she is investing the stakeholders and Congress in the outcome...
Never forget the debacle that is the current medicare prescription plan constructed by a divided Congress, a Congress bought and paid for by the same lobbies that supposedly stabbed her in the back previously. What an expensive, worthless, complicated, ridiculous piece of legislation. I was sitting in my insurance agents office one day, waiting for him to help sort out the options for a woman with her Medicare prescription plan. Poor thing, you wouldn't believe how complicated it was.
What is leadership about if not making bold, good quality decisions and shepherding them through the process? You, Steve, think the lessons she learned was to share responsibility with a corrupt, inept Congress, one that can't even come to a concensus on the occupation of Iraq. I think the lesson she should have learned is to never turn her back on anyone who has stabbed her in the back.
Posted by Julie at September 17, 2007 02:43 PMI'm quite certain the devil is in the details. I am 100% POSITIVE that the final version that passes through the House and Senate will end up full of CORPORATE ENTITLEMENTS, loopholes, and what not to ensure that Corporations have no responsibility to provide coverage to aging Americans and the chronically ill.
In today's world, there are a 'village-full of idiots' (both self-identified liberals and conservatives) whom think it completely appropriate that the 'social contract' between Human Beings and our Corporate-owned Legal Framework should include the necessity to change jobs every 5 years in order to avoid being layed-off or fired..........THESE intervals where individuals are faced with impossible COBRA payments or lapsing coverage / risking not being 'picked-up' by a new plan equal in quality to the one they lost is MORE evil than the outrageous expense of care while insured. Especially in a country where ENTIRE STATES FULL OF PEOPLE are denied a viable or affordable alternative to purchase insurance individually.
We cannot expect for-profit, public companies solely focused on quarterly earnings to balance our lives with executive bonuses or returns on shareholder investments. The proof lies all around us that true Universal healthcare works. The fact that some of you are willing to settle for less ensures the creation of a 'new' system, flawed from creation, destined to be picked apart until it is easily returned to the current status-quo upon the return of a Post-Hillary Conservative administration and/or congress.
Wake up and smell the Plutocracy!!!!
Posted by Tampa Student at September 17, 2007 02:52 PMI have to strongly disagree, Steve. As others have pointed out, she was fooled once and she will be fooled again. "you don't sit down at the table with lobbyists, they'll eat everything is sight".
This isn't a matter of being pure, it's raw reality. As long as the insurance industry is calling the shots, and please don't tell me they are "playing nice", they will NOT give up a 30-45% PROFIT margin to cooperate with a savvy politician. We pay FAR more than any other advanced country for vastly lower quantity of health care. Virtually ALL of it goes into the corporate coffers of the insurance industry; one of the biggest and worst of the lobbies in Washington.
Someone has to have their greedy, grasping fingers pried from the money spigot of the "healthcare industry" in this country. You simply CAN'T give them all an equal place at the table and expect to have a different result! It won't happen! We've been down this Harriet and Louise path before!
Single payer HAS to be the goal. That would wring out about 25% of the costs AND provide universal coverage. At least Edwards and Obama (sort of) provide a mechanism for that to happen. Hillary, and her Hillraisers just won't get that job done. Color me unconvinced.
Posted by DeminNewJ at September 17, 2007 03:39 PMAnyone who thinks it can be done successfully against the objections of medical professionals and the insurance players is fooling themselves.
Emptying bedpans hardly makes you an expert on revamping healthcare.
The insurance industry should not play any role in fixing the healthcare mess. As Michael Moore correctly pointed out in his scathing film, Sicko, the insurance industry is what's wrong with American healthcare.
Who can forget the woman who was told by her HMO that her brain tumor was not a life-threatening illness and was a preexisting condition. They denied her doctor's request for treatment and she died.
Get the insurance out of healthcare and the patient will recover.
Posted by Christopher at September 17, 2007 04:05 PMHillary's plan sounds like her plan version 1.05 to me. Generally, I agree with DeminNJ. The goal has to be single-payer or else you get nowhere. I support Edwards and I don't think he goes far enough, but at least he seems prepared to fight over this. Hillary's "can we talk?" approach is "warm tea" and stale toast.
Posted by gtash at September 17, 2007 04:25 PMClinton will fail badly at this (again) if she's elected. And she will drag down the entire Democratic Party for another twelve years in the process.
Posted by NealB at September 17, 2007 05:02 PMIs anyone going to do anything about the whole "preexisting condition" issue? That's a big reason why people don't have insurance in the first place.
Posted by CG at September 17, 2007 05:48 PMWhy single payer? That just leads to rationing of services. I for one, do NOT want single-payer.
Posted by CG at September 17, 2007 05:52 PMThe best thing about her plan is it calls for the repeal of Bush's taxcuts for people making more than $250,000 a year and you don't have to consult the insurance industry to understand this.
Posted by Christopher at September 17, 2007 05:55 PMChristoher,
How sad that you need to constantly attack people who you basically know nothing about. You can disagree with me all you want. I wouldn't comment here if I expected to be agreed with all the time. But your inability to simply respond like an adult without attempting to belittle people is rather sick. I assure you my wife, and her associates, know rather a bit more about the healthcare industry than what to do with the contents of a bedpan. But you stick to your cute nicknames and insults. I'm sure that will help fix a lot of problems.
Posted by snark at September 17, 2007 06:06 PMCG,
Single payer does NOT lead to rationing. That's only the extremely lame argument of wing nuts. All single payer means is that One source of payment negotiates for all health care costs with the providers. No one is forced to go to a different doctor. No one has to "wait in line" for services. Those are the traditional shiboleths of the Harriet and Louise crowd.
It only means that private providers are all paid (relatively) uniform prices for similar services. It is not "socialized medicine" or "big brother government" control. It only means that one common source pays for health care. Like Medicare/medicaid, it cuts the profit out of the (insurance) industry. Rather than paying 30-45% overhead the single payer model typically costs 2-4% overhead for universal access to healthcare.
Stop swallowing the Kool aid of the corporate propaganda machine. All developed countries with universal access have some form of single payer system. Only we suffer from a dysfunctional for profit and completely for profit system. It's time to demand better!
Posted by DeminNewJ at September 17, 2007 06:17 PMYou don't see people in Europe or Canada going bankrupt because of medical costs. Insurance companies are the problem, not part of the solution. Expand Medicare to cover everyone, take PROFIT out of the picture.
The American people know we have a huge problem. We need a leader!
Posted by gay veteran at September 17, 2007 06:23 PMIt is simply amazing to read how Steve Soto and the other commenters will write, either directly or obliquely, about a single payer health care plan without mentioning that the proponent of this plan is Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Republicans and conservatives could not have done a better job in attempting to marginalize what Kucinich, the most progressive of the Democratic or Republican candidates, stands for.
Posted by Erroll at September 17, 2007 06:34 PM"It only means that private providers are all paid (relatively) uniform prices for similar services. It is not "socialized medicine" or "big brother government" control. It only means that one common source pays for health care."
Let's not wince at the terms "regulation" or "socialization". Most sane people don't want to see our local police forces 'privatized'. Most sane people don't want to rely exclusively on privately-held First Responders for primary emergency services.
Any critical service where continuously increasing shareholder or stakeholder value cannot be realized without creating shortages of basic human needs in a society that has become as wealthy as ours should not be left to private industry to provide...and there are plenty of examples.
For-profit monopoly-owned Prisons. For-profit monopoly-owned PEACE TIME Military. For-profit monopoly-owned elementary education. For-profit monopoly-owned power plants. Each with their own agenda, each with the need to increase their returns quarter-by-quarter, year-by-year. The military-industrial complex that has been growing since the 18th century with only a brief pause.
Healthcare oligopolies are 'fixing' prices now. They're just doing so at levels that exclude large segments of our population. Who the hell are these unelected MBA-Salomons to decide who lives and who dies based on an Excel Spreadsheet containing a cost-benefit analysis?
Posted by Tampa Student at September 17, 2007 06:52 PMDeminNewJ, all I know is that I don't want what Canada has. I have friends there--it can be great, but more and more people are buying private insurance. They're moving more toward what we have and we're moving more toward what they have. There's got to be a middle ground.
Posted by CG at September 17, 2007 07:21 PMHow sad that you need to constantly attack people who you basically know nothing about.
Blah, blah, blah, Princess Doppleganger. ~yawn~
Posted by Christopher at September 17, 2007 07:43 PMSingle-payer is NOT the most important issue. The first criterion is reducing health care costs. This comes before the goal of universal access. I don't know if Hillary's plan is good or not, but I would evaluate it on how it will impact costs.
Posted by MarkL at September 17, 2007 07:49 PMSadly, I didn't expect much more of a response from you Christopher.
Posted by snark at September 17, 2007 08:17 PMIF, and that may be a big if, the efficiency of single-payer measures up to the efficiency of Social Security, it should result in reduced costs, MarkL.
Posted by Julie at September 17, 2007 08:31 PMMark L -The first criterion is reducing health care costs. This comes before the goal of universal access.
That's exactly what has been tried for 30 years. It's not working. Single payer first which will wring out a lot of waste. Then deal with the cost issues.
Our healthcare system is stuck in 19th Century thinking. Back then fire insurers supplied the fire fighters. So instead of one firehouse there was two or more. It didn't work either.
As long as health insurances companies and drug manufacturers must come first, this same costly, inefficient system of healthcare rationing cannot be changed. We can either deal with the realities of healthcare in a socially and fiscally responsible manner or wait for a pandemic that will not discriminate between insured and uninsured but the uninsured will go untreated and that will increase the infection rate within the insured population. Or we could force the uninsured to wear red triangles on their clothes warning others to stay away from the.
Individual mandate is another ridiculously silly idea. It does nothing to correct the cost component which means that the costs will remain high will continue, leaving many people with a choice between food or health insurance.
Posted by Marie at September 17, 2007 08:34 PMPrincess Doppleganger
You think snark is me? So that's what doppleganger's supposed to mean. I've been wondering all this time. Ha! You really are an idiot!
Oh, that's just funny...you poor thing...don't even have the sense to be embarrassed...hehehe
Posted by iamcoyote at September 17, 2007 09:56 PMThere is about zero support for wholesale tearing down of the current system flawed as it is.
How do you know there is no support? And exactly what do you mean by "wholesale tearing down of the current system?" Please explain.
And what about this:
If this comparison with Romney's plan is accurate, then Hillary's proposal is NOT GOOD.
It is inevitable that some of her Democratic opponents and the netroots will say that she doesn't go far enough, supposedly because she is too cozy with the insurance companies, the drug companies, and the lobbyists...
And they might have a point.
Posted by TrainWreck at September 18, 2007 12:22 AMWhat I mean by zero support is that amongst the professional circles that my wife travels in, which encompass both clinical and academic, no one believes that anything other than an attempt at an incremental overhaul of the current system can possibly have a positive result. The vested interests in the status quo are going to styme anything else. It's not that they (my wife et al) are happy about that. Just realistic, as I believe. Steve's analysis of HRC's approach is. When I say "wholesale tearing down of the system" I mean what people mean when they write things like "get insurance companies out of healthcare and the patient will heal itself". Strong words, but what are the implications of such a suggestion?
Clinton's proposal is not perfect but it at least has the potential to move the issue in the right direction. Which was the point that Steve was trying to make I believe.
Posted by snark at September 18, 2007 04:31 AMBlah, blah, blah. LOL!
Posted by Christopher at September 18, 2007 05:09 AMWhich was the point that Steve was trying to make I believe.
snark, that's my understanding as well. It may seem like it would be better to tear down the entire system and start from scratch to build it up again in a "good" way, but you know, that's what they supposedly tried to do in Iraq. We saw how well that turned out.
Posted by iamcoyote at September 18, 2007 05:19 AMHillary could shit on a puppy and you people would spin it as a political masterstroke.
This website needs a new name. Sellout Coaster, perhaps?
Oh, and when is this woman going to lead on anything?
Ever?
Posted by RAM at September 18, 2007 06:22 AM"tear down the entire system and start from scratch"?
we already have a system that works: Medicare
Posted by Gay Veteran at September 18, 2007 06:22 AMThis Christopher character is a real prick, isn't he.
Posted by RAM at September 18, 2007 06:25 AM