Spintested: 07/16/12

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Monday, July 16, 2012

Public Option will never sell, because it sounds like communism.

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Washington Post - Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds

Reuters - Most in U.S. want public health option: Poll

New Poll: 77 Percent Support "Choice" Of Public Option

In a NBC News and The Wall Street Journal poll, almost three-fourths said it was important to have a choice between a public plan and a private plan.

A CNN poll included a question very similar to the NBC News-Wall Street Journal’s:

“Now thinking specifically about the health insurance plans available to most Americans, would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies?”

In the CNN survey, 61 percent said they favored a public option.

Don't quit your day job. That is unless you're a political operative.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Richard Wolf was not saying what you eluded to. In fact, he was making the same point I have been making. Obama was aware of what was do-able and what wasn't.

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As I said, nobody has to take your word for anything; I provide links to citations where readers can find the facts for themselves.

Richard Wolffe says, "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Obama Was Never For It" -- In his own words, watch him here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

If you rant about Obama, you just may be a blue dog.

======================

If I was a Blue Dog, then I'd have nothing to criticize him about because by Obama's own admission: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

American Coot Chicks Caught Bobbing Around Golden Gate Park (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

American Coots have feet like fava beans. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7163/6566261477_c51750cff2_z.jpg
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

will the politicians be willing to give up their big time donations from the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical industries? I am skeptical.

=========================

Which is why I say that unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless.

Neither party's interested in doing that because it would mean they would lose their hold on money and power.

Any party that doesn't have that as their first order of business (particularly after the Citizens United decision and the overwhelming public support for reform) is d!rty, rotten and corrupt to the bone.

I'm an old, lifelong Democrat saying that. I've never voted Republican, and I can't see voting for another Democrat again.

I think it's too late for this "noble experiment" continuing the US as we've known it and as it was intended (a democratic republic) by the framers. What's at the root of the problem could only have been remedied had Obama come into office investigating and prosecuting the Bush administration and restoring the 'rule of law'.

Bush and Cheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constitution: The precarious balance of power between the three branches of government, and Obama is picking up where BushCheney left off.

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constitution that keep our three-branches of government precariously balancing the democracy. But Bush-Cheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequences.

That fact alone casts suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigate and prosecute and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with "indefinite preventive detention" of American citizens and the kiIIing of Americans with no due process or oversight).

There was a coup d'etat in this nation, a bloodless one, but a coup nonetheless. And both parties are in on it.

And the only possible solution that I see is voting third party. So that a third party gets enough of a percentage of the vote to overcome how the Democrats and Republicans have gamed the process keeping challenge to their status quo out of the public discourse. 5% is what's needed to get a seat at the table, coverage by the media.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made. Those who believe that Obama's healthcare legislation is "incremental change", it institutionalizes the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to medical treatment (requiring having a job, too), which is something that everybody wanted to end. And there never will be a public option or any kind of affordable, quality medical care for all as long as Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats are in office: "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Obama Never Was For It". Watch it and weep.

FYI - There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it. And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver CHANGE across the board, he enters office with PLATINUM political capital.

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama, with Pelosi's and Reid's compliance. We actually would have already had real healthcare reform legislation (single payer universal healthcare), but Obama had to get it off the table before negotiations ever began. Because if affordable, quality medical care for everyone is the goal, everything else pales next to single payer. And that's why Obama had to get it off the table.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Of course he made deals.

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Obama made deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, Hospitals, AMA, all the while he was stating publicly that, 1.) it was not his job, it was Congress's job and that he was leaving it to the Congressional committees to write the legislation, and 2.) he wouldn't sign any legislation that didn't include "a robust public option".

Obama was undercutting Congress and lying to both Congress and the people.

What Obama actually did was sabotage real health care reform, and in an ingenious way -- Had single payer universal health care remained on the table during the process, likely a robust public option, one which would have worked to lower costs, would have been the compromise end position.

But by taking single payer off the table before negotiations ever began and then disappearing from the public debate on health care (and reneging on the promise to open Congress's work to public scrutiny), what got 'compromised' was the public option, leaving our health care problems virtually the same but with Big Insurance and PhRma reaping BILLIONS more (by the mandate and not having to negotiate lower drug prices) for a few million more people getting insurance policies (not healthcare, but policies).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

"But, but, but" nothing.

Obama never pressured Blue Dogs, he didn't want to. We know now, in retrospect, that he'd made deals early on with Big Insurance, PhRma, Hospitals and the AMA, that specifically excluded there being any cost-containing measures like a public option.

When Obama does want Blue Dogs on board, he buys them. Just as he did Ben Nelson. Just as he did Mary Landrieu.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

The enmeshment between wealth and the repubs makes it a certainty that they are not ever, ever going to do anything to help working people improve the quality of their lives.

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Most Members of Congress Enjoy Robust Financial Status, Despite Nation's Sluggish Economic Recovery

And Democrats in Congress are wealthier than Republicans in Congress.

Obama broke all fundraising records in 2008, out raising McCain almost 2 to 1.

Stop with the BS. They ALL work for the 1%.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008. It was BlueDogs who lost their seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressives only lost 3 seats.

Obama never pressured BenNelson (or BlancheLincoln, or any BlueDog). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (BlancheLincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a PublicOption for healthcare. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't.

Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).

The ProgressiveCaucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust PublicOption. They didn't.

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after HowardDean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the ProgressiveCaucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.

There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn't ordered. Obama and the DLC-Democrats want Lieberman there, doing what he's doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.

And the proof of this is that (since you mention Nelson), when Obama needed Nelson re: StupakAmendment, he 'bought' his support. That's what Obama could've done for Nelson's or Lincoln's vote at any time, on any legislation.

There could be 100 "progressives" in the Senate and 435 in the House, and they and Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporations instead of the People and blame it on Republicans. Because they're DLC, aka Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the WhiteHouse, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind BlueDogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

BlueDog BlancheLincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor BillHalter.

Republican-turned-Independent ArlenSpecter over progressive Democrat JoeSestak.

Republican-turned-Independent LincolnChaffee over Democrat FrankCaprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican JohnLoughlin over Democrat DavidCicilline for the congressional seat Democrat PatrickKennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in RhodeIsland).

Republican-turned-Independent CharlieCrist over liberal Democrat KendrickMeek.

Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who've had the greatest majority in decades. You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would've turned the tables and thwarted Republicans' continuing legislation like Bush's tax cuts for the rich? Are Democrats just stupld?

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

it was the best that could be gotten with only 2 or 3 repubs signing on in the Senate.

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It didn't need any Republicans -- Ultimately it was done through reconciliation. 50 + 1.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

So you think if there were price controls, there would be long lines for mammograms ("Get yer mammogram now, because at these cheap prices we may run out of mammograms in the future!")?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

I am not sure if you are aware of this but CEO salaries are aproved by shareholders. Shareholders who are in the 99%.

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This is where I lose respect for people like you. Having some money in mutual funds doesn't get you a vote in setting CEO salaries.

The health care system is set up to generate profits NOT to provide care. To pay for care, we rely on hundreds of investor-owned insurance companies that profit by refusing coverage to the sickest patients and limiting services to the others. And they cream roughly 20% off the top of the premium dollar for profits and overhead.

Our method of delivering care is no better than our method of paying for it. We provide much of the care in investor-owned health facilities that profit by providing too many services for the well-insured and too few for those who cannot pay. Most doctors are paid fee-for-service which gives them a similar incentive to focus on profitable services, particularly specialists, who receive very high fees for expensive tests and procedures. In sum, health care is for maximizing income and not maximizing health.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

There are many methods to lowering costs, which would only improve the economy and which now are arbitrary and for the purpose of PRIVATE gain. They don't necessarily reflect the real costs.

Why would you choose a system with shareholders get dividends and CEOs get bloated salaries/benefits/bonuses from denying you medical care over a non-profit single payer universal healthcare system like Medicare?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

'Medical loss ratio' is what you're talking about.

And the insurance industry has already figured out the way around it.

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, whistleblower Wendell Potter talks with Lawrence O'Donnell about where the con game (medical loss ratio, the amount of money insurers must spend on health care) is in the legislation, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.

The bill was written by the insurance industry. The regulations were created by the insurance industry and the regulations and legislation is being implemented and overseen by the insurance industry. Obama put the foxes in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executives Liz Fowler and Steve Larsen) to write both the legislation and the regulations, and enforce the regulations.

Fowler's most notable actions to date has been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees. So much for Candidate Obama's pledge on restricting lobbyists from writing our laws.

Why put the insurance industry into the equation of Americans' medical treatment at all? Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The way that the insurance industry makes its profits is by taking a cut of money that can be spent on medical care. And in reality the insurance industry profits like Wall Street and all other corporations that have crashed our economy have profited: By denying claims and preventing treatment (Wall Street and corporations do it by offshoring manufacturing, outsourcing jobs, eliminating jobs in spite of record profits for short term windfalls to shareholders and bonuses for CEOs, etc.).

The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

We had high--priced junk insurance before. We got more of it.

ACA is not universal. It has no chance of expanding to cover everyone, and it leads to the end of all public healthcare programs (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.). That's a fact. That's the point of it. To end all public programs, privatize them.

The controlling meme that has been operational for the past 40 years, the sales pitch for privatizing government services and resources, is that "private industry can do it cheaper". While Republicans (Nixon) began it, Democrats joined in (Jimmy Carter). But it's just not true that private industry does it cheaper. Or even better. What gets privatized, gets 'Bained'. The jobs go offshore, or the same government workers who did the job are hired by the Bain-like corporation, to do the same job, for less money and fewer benefits.

The taxpayer's still picking up the tab, but the money's now going to the private corporation which has to make a profit for its shareholders (as well as bloated CEO bonuses, some bling for his wife, etc.). Profit comes by denying medical care to subscribers.

What Obama did was entrench, institutionalize, the insurance industry as the 'for-profit'-gatekeepers to Americans getting medical care. For all time. And an expensive gatekeeper at that; much more expensive than the government (and less efficient, too).

Administrative costs, the amount of money taken out of every dollar the subscriber pays into the plan? Medicare takes about 5%. Private insurance companies take anywhere between 23% to 30% (and it's can be as high as 39%). Either the private insurance companies are grossly inefficient or they're extremely profitable for the people who run them. Net profit, after all, is what's left after all the bloated salaries of the upper management team is taken out.

What's wrong with that is that CEOs are making 400-500 times as much as the line workers and they're not doing it because they're incredibly savvy, efficient, inspiring leaders; they're doing it because they run in a rarified circle of like-minded people that mutually justify their obscene compensation packages.

Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:

Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.

'Line workers', by the way, are the actual providers of healthcare services, and in most cases their rates haven't been raised in close to 20 years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

We Need to Know Who Funds These Thinktank Lobbyists:

Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers

It appears to have followed the script written by a consultant to the Republican party, Frank Luntz, in 2002. "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Under The Radar, PR's Political Savvy:

When it comes to the inner workings of Washington, you often hear about lobbyists influencing the political process. But there's another time-tested profession that works just as hard trying to do much the same thing: Public relations. In D.C. it's often referred to as "public affairs" or "advocacy." But it's PR just the same.

First, what is the difference between lobbying and public relations? For starters, lobbyists have to disclose their activities. PR professionals do not. But they do work together.

David Fuscus, is president of Xenophon Strategies, a firm that does both. He uses a D-Day analogy.

"Everybody's seen the footage of the landing craft, the house on the hill in Normandy. Well, those guys in the landing craft are the lobbyists," Fuscus says. "They're getting ready to hit the beaches to go try and convince somebody to do something."

The lobbyists' target: Capitol Hill. But Fuscus says the PR folks deploy first.

"The communications, we're there about two weeks before. We're the Air Force. We're conditioning the legislative landscape for them to go and do it," Fuscus explains.

[...]

"The art of public affairs is telling your side of the story as many ways as you can to create that echo chamber around whatever target you're trying to reach," says Anne Womack-Kolton, the group's vice president of communications.

One the other side, there's the Environmental Working Group, where Alex Formuzis is vice president of media relations. He says one of the group's goals is to "provide media outlets — both new and traditional — with our research. They often report on it, and many have large audiences."

Layton says both sides in the BPA battle "have a pretty strong PR apparatus."

In Washington, one of the weapons advocacy and trade groups like to use to generate news is a new study. Layton says she has been inundated.

"I'll get an email or a phone call from either side saying, 'Hey, did you see this new Canadian study that says BPA is completely safe?'

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Monday, July 16, 2012

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

American Coot Chicks Caught Bobbing Around Golden Gate Park (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Health Law Costs, Benefits Can Add Up To A Win For Young And Old

Tim Geithner's Libor Recommendations Came Straight From Banks, Documents Show

Tim Geithner's Libor Recommendations Came Straight From Banks, Documents Show

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