I guarantee that Seniors are confused, scared and mad about this Medicare fiasco the Bush Administration has caused for the purpose of making more money for Big Drug. What the Dems need to do is: 1- make sure it is clear this is a Bush problem, 2-keep the GOP from blaming the Dems, and 3-present a short term and long term solution that is EASY to understand, and tell seniors to vote for Dems in 06 if they want to get the thing fixed.
Sounds easy, like so many other things the Dems wish they could do and don't.
Sharing life's obstacles allows all of us to exist for the most part without a single event ruining us. Insurance is but a pool of shared risk. My premiums help replace a home on a flood plain despite my living on elevated land. There are numerous similar examples. However, where do we draw the line when the conduct of our fellow citizens place unnecessary risk on the common pool of the insured? Hospitals are full of 2 pack a day smokers needing cardiac surgery or lung cancer treatments because of their self abuse. Their employer's insurers or the public pay the bulk of their bill. The same could be said of the obese, eating their way into diabetes, skeletal problems and heart attacks. Alcoholics need liver transplants or repairs for various maladies and predicaments their drunkeness inflicts on them. I don't drink or smoke. I don't eat to excess. I exercise daily, monitor my blood pressure and cholesterol, wear my seat belt and avoid dangerous activities. Put me in a pool of people sharing those traits and let me pay health care premiums commensurate with my personal behavior. Create another pool for people wanting to smoke, drink and eat themselves into ill health. Maybe if they were faced with the impossibility of acquiring affordable insurance they'd alter their habits. If not I guess they could just die, albeit a little sooner than their vices may have killed them anyway.
Posted by steve duncan at January 23, 2006 11:49 AMFailed at healthcare? Yes, but he has failed at everything else also unless you think that expansion of fundamentalism is a good thing.
Posted by Ga6thDem at January 23, 2006 11:50 AMVoters over 65 always turn out in large numbers and I haven't met one yet whose happy with the current drug plan.
Posted by rlp at January 23, 2006 12:12 PMI wouldn't say Bush has wasted eight years in office. Though the vast majority of Americans are in far worse shape than they were when he took (& I do mean took) office, the very rich & big business have never had it better.
The little guy? Welllll .. have you noticed how quickly that second coal-mining disaster disappeared from the news cycles? The little guy doesn't count much these days, and his life is worth less and less all the time.
This is Dubya's "legacy:" screw the poor.
Posted by zhak at January 23, 2006 03:41 PM"Last year, he went after your Social Security. This year, it's health care."
That's good, Steve. And the SOTU dem responder should say that and get the chant started.
And thanks for that reminder of the Dems protecting Social Security. I have been so disgusted with their constant rolling over, I forgot about that. Now if they filibuster tomorrow, I will send flowers even though I'm a poor student now.
Posted by Sharon at January 23, 2006 04:21 PMCreate another pool for people wanting to smoke, drink and eat themselves into ill health.
I would rather get you genetically tested and know your family background.
My great grandad on my dad's side only ate fried pork, hated any other meat. Liked it real fat and soaked the grease out of the pan with bread. Real old timey stuff. If it couldn't be fried or boiled you can't eat it. Smoked like a chimney. Drank like a fish. He had a very sedentary life. Died at 102 in bed. All of that side are very robust in the stuff they enjoy and live very long lives. Same on my mom's side.
While you pat yourself on the back, so did Jim Fix.
The reason rates are so high is because of the uninsured, not the lifestyle. Everytime an uninsured person gets heath care or someone files medical bancruptcy you pay for it through your rates. The logic of your plan says we should stop treating the uninsured. Otherwise, you're just being a weird brand of health nut.
Posted by phidipides at January 23, 2006 05:21 PMAgree with Phidipides,
What if you run a cigarette smoker out of the heath insurance program and he and his family get run over by a truck. Not exactly a smoking problem and yet he and his family are screwed when they show up at the emergency room all beat up.
I think that we can find a better way to deal with unhealthy lifestyles, How about some education instead. It works remarkably well. Americans as a group smoke a lot, lot less than their grandparents did. There is only one reason for the change. People are more aware of the serious side affects of smoking.
Oh, and before Prohibition, Americans drank 3 times more alcohol than they do now. Again, people became aware of the negative consequences of getting blitzed every night.
Just an idea. One that doesn't throw our fellow American citizens to the wolves.
Posted by Growth Factor at January 23, 2006 06:22 PMOh please phipides, that old canard about granny practically subsisting soley on Jim Beam and filterless Lucky Strikes, along with eating every single bad food on the shelf, does no good in a discussion of pursuing good health. If those habits truly stood up to medical scrutiny the AMA would recommend it. Philip-Morris would advertise it. Do we cite the helmetless guy thrown 100 feet head first into a tree during a motorcylce crash and living through it as proof helmets are unneeded? A rural backwoodsman drinking untreated, unfiltered water for his entire life to no apparent ill effect means advocating elimination of modern sewage treatment plants? Go ahead, cite Jim Fixx as a good reason NOT to exercise. I'll take my low fat to body mass ratio, low resting heart beat and overall excellent stamina to however the average couch potato practicing your recommended health regimen feels. And to state there aren't unneccessary billions being spent on those that smoke, drink and eat to excess is delusional. How many billions more in survivor benefits are doled out to children of the early deceased because of their poor habits? How much is paid to those "disabled" via their own self abuse and neglect? What of lost work days, the fallout and costs of accidents and auto crashes due to drunkeness? As a nation we are really a large, communal organism. We compete against the world, and when we're as sick, fat, drug addled and inebriated as millions of our citizens are that organism is functioning in a diseased, compromised state of health. I don't know the answers. If letting such idiots expire for several generations, as opposed to nursing them back to health only to have them get sick again, results in a society evolved away from slow, sickly suicide I'm all for it.
Posted by steve duncan at January 23, 2006 06:43 PMActually, I've heard that the U.S. economy benefits from obesity.
As for Bush, it's not so much that he's failed on health care, he will do that, too, but mostly that he's done nothing about health care. Well, other than some nice entitlement programs for the pharmaceutical companies.
Posted by ann at January 23, 2006 08:22 PMOtherwise, you're just being a weird brand of health nut.
Well, physical fitness might be a sign of personal virtue, but it's not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive health care policy.
I remember Cheney saying something like that.
Posted by ann at January 23, 2006 08:26 PMIf letting such idiots expire for several generations, as opposed to nursing them back to health only to have them get sick again, results in a society evolved away from slow, sickly suicide I'm all for it.
Well shit, look what the state of CA was going to do. Let's revive him to kill him, again, if need be.
Posted by bbtb at January 23, 2006 08:39 PM