Cyclo has become even more childishly patronizing even as he digs himself into a deeper hole.
His own (gosh !) "link" notes that the version of the House bill with a government option (that will likely not pass) is projected to add $239 billion to the deficit over ten years, and the option without this option adds even more. Worse, similar initial projections to other entitlement programs have all proven to have been exceedingly optimistic (no link - this should be common knowledge). Interestingly he counts new taxes and planned reductions to other government spending - neither of which is included in the legislation or has yet been enacted - as somehow part of the scheme. This is sophistry of the worst sort.
Neither the new taxes nor the other cuts will come free. Cyclo is apparently motivated by the fact that others, not himself, will pay those taxes, though he is quick to accuse them of greed.
Sadly, everyone will eventually suffer the economic effects of this taxation and spending, as well as lose their freedom of private choice under this plan, discovering the cold, inept hand of government brueaucracy in their relations with their medical providers.
Nabcy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and the other leaders in the House for this legislation are indeed among the extreme liberal fraction of the Congress. That is an observable fact - not "an appeal to extremes".
George, Diabetes alone will cost taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars in the next decade. Diabetes is relatively simple to maintain, forever, but really… why the hell has it not been cured? Answer: It's too friggin profitable to maintain. A single payer would, obviously, create a program to reduce its costs... CURES! Meanwhile, sufferers of Diabetes alone pay through the friggin nose, and are ever-increasingly not covered by insurance companies. Our current system sucks.
I think you are indulging in paranoid fantasy.
They have even subverted creative drama writers into voluntarily censoring everyday scenes with someone smoking in them. Humphrey Bogart taking a deep pull on a Camel and drawing into his lungs, in close up, the serene satisfaction of tobacco smoke when under duress is not allowed now except on out of the way channels. Even when Coronation Street occasionally plucks up the courage to assert its artistic integrity in its dramatic depictions of a world where a good percentage of workers smoke, and its independence from interference by any vested interests, it takes care to make smoking look mean and dissolute and the smokers desperate and pained
OCCOM BILL wrote:
George, Diabetes alone will cost taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars in the next decade. Diabetes is relatively simple to maintain, forever, but really… why the hell has it not been cured? Answer: It's too friggin profitable to maintain. A single payer would, obviously, create a program to reduce its costs... CURES! Meanwhile, sufferers of Diabetes alone pay through the friggin nose, and are ever-increasingly not covered by insurance companies. Our current system sucks.
I'm suspicious of your $2 trillion number, however, I won't argue the point.
I find your assertion that there has been a conspiracy (whether overt or silent) to avoid a cure for diabetes because the financial rewards for treating it are so great to be contrary to common sense. In the first place this sort of thing didn't occur with polio; a host of infectuous diseases; and numerous improved (and far less costly & invasive) surgical treatments for disorders ranging from gall bladder removal to repair of joint injuries -- all of which were previously far more expensive to treat and maintain. In the second place, the entities working on the development of a cure (if there is one) are generally not the ones profiting from the manufacture and distribution of testing materials and the generic drugs used for palliative treatment. I think you are indulging in paranoid fantasy.
Equally unrealistic is your implicit assumption that government will be more energetic and cost effective in finding cures than will medical specialists and for profit pharmaceutical companies. Consider for a moment the government research project to break the key to the human genome -- The Department of Energy & the National Institutes of Health spent over $3 billion (not including a hundred plus million for the construction of facilities at Livermore and in Bethesda) for their 13 year human genome project. Craig Venter in a privately funded research project beat these flabby bureaucracies to their goal by several years and spent only 15% of what they did in doing so. Today it is his efforts, not those of the government, that are leading in new applications of this research.
Finally, it is noteworthy that diabetes is largely (though not entirely) a lifestyle disease. The incidence of diabetes is known to be associated with and caused by the combination of a diet high in sugars and insufficient physical exercise and activity. Our government today continues huge economic subsidies to domestic producers of cane sugar and corn (for HFCS), even though the economic case for their continuance has long since vanished. In effect it is subsidizing the manufacturers of the very foods that are known to (in excess) cause the disease. Why???
The fact is that all government spending programs create cadres of beneficiaries and brueaucrats whose power and wealth are sustained by these programs and who avidly resist any change or reduction in them - even when the reason for their continuance has long since vanished. This is not true in the private sector where the competitive market quickly annihialates useless or non productive entities. Turning medical research or innovation over to the government is a sure formula for stagnation and mediocrity.
George, Diabetes alone will cost taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars in the next decade. Diabetes is relatively simple to maintain, forever, but really… why the hell has it not been cured? Answer: It's too friggin profitable to maintain. A single payer would, obviously, create a program to reduce its costs... CURES! Meanwhile, sufferers of Diabetes alone pay through the friggin nose, and are ever-increasingly not covered by insurance companies. Our current system sucks.
I made no such assertion, George, and I am not paranoid. Private research dollars ARE geared toward profit... which in most cases is in maintenance. Sure, they stumble across cures now and then but you know better than to think the guy with the check book doesn't steer the ship towards the money. One need not buy a conspiracy theory, George. A rudimentary understanding of how business works should suffice.
And if a single payer were to offer a 100 Billion Dollar reward on the cure, how many guys like Venter do you think would tighten their focus on precisely that?
I haven't suggested "Turning medical research or innovation over to the government." I suggested that the government pay for it. Some pretty impressive things have been accomplished this way, George. Ever see the array of toys on an Aircraft Carrier?
OCCOM BILL wrote:George, Diabetes alone will cost taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars in the next decade. Diabetes is relatively simple to maintain, forever, but really… why the hell has it not been cured? Answer: It's too friggin profitable to maintain. A single payer would, obviously, create a program to reduce its costs... CURES! Meanwhile, sufferers of Diabetes alone pay through the friggin nose, and are ever-increasingly not covered by insurance companies. Our current system sucks.
OCCOM BILL wrote:I believe the first quote above does indeed constitute an assertion that there has been a profit motivated conspiracy to avoid investment in cures or more effective/less expensive treatments in favor of more profitable maintenance regimes. You may well have intended something different, but what you wrote is very clear.I made no such assertion, George, and I am not paranoid. Private research dollars ARE geared toward profit... which in most cases is in maintenance. Sure, they stumble across cures now and then but you know better than to think the guy with the check book doesn't steer the ship towards the money. One need not buy a conspiracy theory, George. A rudimentary understanding of how business works should suffice.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Right, and if pigs had wings they could fly. I cited a specific example with the human genome project, and it is indeed typical. Your suggested alternative is not. Somehow I don't see the self-serving legislators who (1) berated auto execs. for using corporate aircraft and then trounce over to Washington national Airport to board specially procured Air Force aircraft for their weekend trips home to California - and then (2) returned to condemn Banks and investment companies for their compensation practices -- creating such profitable incentives for private sector investment in risky new developments. Indeed I can think of nothing comparable in the history of our nation - excepting only the capitalization of the transcontinental railroad. Perhaps you could illuminate us with some of the bold new curative breakthroughs the single payer health systems in the UK and Canada have achieved.And if a single payer were to offer a 100 Billion Dollar reward on the cure, how many guys like Venter do you think would tighten their focus on precisely that?
OCCOM BILL wrote:I don't see much distinction between turning something over to the government and having the government pay for it. My consistent experience has been, if the government pays it also rules. Can you cite any contrary examples?I haven't suggested "Turning medical research or innovation over to the government." I suggested that the government pay for it. Some pretty impressive things have been accomplished this way, George. Ever see the array of toys on an Aircraft Carrier?
Some parts of the government are - for unique cultural and historical reasons - quite untypical of the rest. Two examples are the U.S. Marine Corps and Naval Aviation. Moreover, not all of the "toys" on carriers work that well. Early in my career an F-3D Demon (predecessor to the Phantom) damn near killed me.
How does it feel to have health insurance contributions deducted from your paycheck, then find out you didn't actually have insurance, and now are expected to pay thousands in medical bills? Ask employees of Turbine Airfoil Designs Inc. in Harrisburg, Dauphin County.
TAD stopped paying toward its Capital BlueCross group plan in October. TAD employees said they didn't know that. For five months, their believed coverage remained in effect. Or so it seemed, since their insurance cards remained valid.
In March, Capital sent TAD employees letters saying their coverage had been canceled retroactively to Oct. 9. Now some TAD employees face five months' worth of medical bills. Some have bills totaling $10,000 or more. State agencies are investigating.
I could change my mind too. I don't think anything cranked out with the deadline congress seems to be working under is going to be well thought out.
Quote:I could change my mind too. I don't think anything cranked out with the deadline congress seems to be working under is going to be well thought out.
And I agree.
I cant support of the plans suggested RIGHT NOW because they seem to be more what the politicians want instead of what is needed.
Thats not to say I wont change my mind if someone presents a decent, well thought out plan.
So far that hasnt happened, and I seriously doubt if that will happen.
The people in DC are to worried about getting re-elected, instead of doing the right thing.
And yes, I include repubs AND dems in that statement.
Obama is addressing a joint session of Congress this week, and may present a unified plan that the Dems have negotiated behind the scenes, I've been reading a lot about that this week.
The people in DC are to worried about getting re-elected, instead of doing the right thing.
At a recent town hall held by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), an elderly gentleman named Jim Parker stood up and told the congressman that he was recently treated for colon cancer. “I did not have insurance,” he said, because “things didn’t quite work out” after he started his own business. Parker informed Kingston that “a friend of mine was in the same position, and we buried him last January.”
Kingston responded by telling the man that “you did do very well” because he was able to get treated when he arrived at the hospital. Parker responded, “I am functionally bankrupt!” Kingston cut him off and reiterated his point:
But you did get coverage. You didn’t get the insurance, but they won’t turn you down at the door. And we do need to focus on people like you. However, here’s the problem: among other things, in countries that have socialized medicine, you have longer waiting lines, you have bureaucracy…it does lead to rationing.
Kingston’s argument is a familiar conservative trope. In July 2007, President Bush claimed that “people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
Of course, just going “to an emergency room” is what drives up health care costs for all Americans. “Access to emergency room care is not the same as access to comprehensive, coordinated, and timely health care services"the kind of care that coverage facilitates.” And as the town hall attendee noted, without insurance, a hospital visit commonly leaves Americans bankrupt.
Kingston has been telling the media that the August town halls have helped to defeat Obama’s health care plan. And he recently told Politico that the GOP is “going to keep the nightmare going through the fall.” A nightmare all too real for people like Jim Parker.
The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.
To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."
Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.
More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.
In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.
Ingenix chief executive Andrew Slavitt said the Ingenix data was never biased, but Ingenix nonetheless agreed to exit that particular line of business. "The data didn't have the appearance of independence that's necessary for it to be useful," Slavitt said.
Lewin Group Vice President John Sheils said his firm had nothing to do with the allegedly flawed Ingenix reimbursement data. Lewin has gone through "a terribly difficult adjustment" since it was bought by UnitedHealth in 2007, because the corporate ownership "does create the appearance of a conflict of interest."
"It hasn't affected . . . the work we do, and I think people who know me know that I am not a good liar," Sheils said.
Lewin's clients include the government and private groups with a variety of perspectives, including the Commonwealth Fund and the Heritage Foundation. A February report contained information that could be used to argue for a single-payer system, the approach most threatening to private insurers, Sheils noted.
But not all of the firm's reports see the light of day. For example, a study for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was never released, Sheils said.
"Let's just say, sometimes studies come out that don't show exactly what the client wants to see. And in those instances, they have [the] option to bury the study -- to not release it, rather," Sheils said.
Asked to comment, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association spokesman Brett Lieberman said, "We're still working with Lewin on a study, and, you know, we don't talk about our studies until they're done."
In testimony last month to a House committee, Lewin disclosed its affiliation with UnitedHealth and Ingenix in its written submission, but in his oral testimony he did not bring it up until asked, according to a transcript.
"The Lewin Group is committed to providing independent, objective and nonpartisan analyses of policy options," the firm said at the front of its written submission to the Energy and Commerce Committee. "To assure the independence of its work, The Lewin Group has editorial control over all its work products," the firm added.
Lewin produced one of the most widely cited statistics of the health care debate: That, under a particular version of a public option, the number of people with private, employer-sponsored coverage would decline by more than 100 million.
Opponents of the public option have invoked the finding as proof that offering a government-run health plan would not just create competition for private insurers -- it would deprive people of their existing employer-sponsored coverage and lead to a government takeover of the health care system.
"The nonpartisan Lewin Group predicts that two out of three Americans who get their health care through their employer would lose it under the House Democrat plan," Cantor, the second-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, said in a July 12 commentary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Since then, adjusting its analysis to reflect the latest version of legislation drafted by House Democrats, Lewin has estimated that 88.1 million workers would shift from private, employer-sponsored insurance to the proposed public plan.
The Congressional Budget Office came to a different conclusion, saying that enrollment in the House Democrats' proposed public plan would total about 11 million to 12 million people.
Sheils said the CBO apparently assumes only small employers would be able to shift their workers into the proposed health insurance exchange, where individuals could shop for coverage among regulated options, while Lewin assumes that all employers could do that. The House bill would leave open ended the question of which employers would ultimately be eligible to use the exchange.
The CBO has not responded to requests for comment.
President Obama and other backers have sold the option of a government-run health plan as a check on insurers -- a new source of competition that would hold them more accountable to consumers, especially in markets where industry consolidation has left little competition among private insurers. Obama has pledged that, if people like their current coverage, they will be able to keep it.
Insurance companies have been trying to block the public option, saying it would undercut their prices and put them out of business by slashing payments to doctors and hospitals.
Lewin's findings have been somewhat distorted in the political debate. The firm's analysis of the public option is far from one-sided.
As Sheils explained it to the Energy and Commerce Committee, people would opt for the public plan because they would find it more attractive -- mainly because it would charge much lower premiums.
Politicians have argued that the public plan would place bureaucrats between patients and doctors. However, Lewin wrote that, like traditional Medicare, the federal program for the elderly, a public plan would do less than private insurers to restrict medical care.
Though the millions of people Lewin was describing would lose their current employer-sponsored coverage, they wouldn't be forced into a government-run health plan, Sheils said in an interview. Rather, they would be able to choose between the government plan and other private options.
"People would indeed lose what they have, but they might very well be better off," he said.
