FYI, Whats in and whats out (Health care bill)

[VonVulcan]

Transparency continues to be out.

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2009/o ... 10-23.html


Just one excerpt.

\"One amendment that did pass was Senator Maria Cantwell's (D-WA) amendment that gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to define cost-effective care for each medical condition and to punish doctors who treat high-cost patients with complex conditions. That has been Obama's goal from the beginning and will inevitably lead to the \"death panels\" Sarah Palin warned about.\"

[Bet51987]

.

[Krom]

Anyone who talks about how the government is going to have \"death panels\" are seriously underestimating just how quickly and how much effort a private for-profit insurance company will expend to drop your coverage. These so called \"death panels\" have been around for a long time already, only they are called \"review boards\" and your privately owned for-profit insurance company probably has several of them. Its just that according to the political right wing; private industry can do no wrong, so it has always been ignored or quietly swept under the rug.

You know what the differences between a private for-profit insurance company and The Devil are? The Devil is more honest, upfront, accountable and keeps its promises.

Meanwhile candidates from both sides and in the middle of the isle enjoy huge contributions from the industry, and frequently sign and bring forward bills with sugar coated names written by the insurance lobbyists likely without even reading them. No matter how morally bankrupt the private industry is, as long as they aren't financially bankrupt they can do whatever they want and \"death panel\" whomever they like. The only action your representatives will do is continue to pat them on the back while receiving huge benefits under the table. All while they claim to stand up for the voters, bunch of two faced rotten scumbags...

Can't you see how desperately this country needs reform? So called \"death panels\" are surely an issue that needs to be covered, but forget damaging private industry, if this system isn't reformed it will destroy the entire economy, the mortgage crisis will be a laughable hiccup by comparison. Private industry needs to get out of trying to control our economy, since the economy is for everyone but private industry is only self serving.

[Spidey]

Private industry needs to get out of trying to control our economy, since the economy is for everyone but private industry is only self serving.

WoW comrade, I had no idea…

When it’s time to come for my business, will you join in, or let somebody else do your dirty work?

[Will Robinson]

...Private industry needs to get out of trying to control our economy, since the economy is for everyone but private industry is only self serving.

Everyone who tries to sway congress' opinion is self serving and trying to have some control over the economy it doesn't matter if it is BIG business or one dorky guy who wants to save the cousin of the dung beetle. Congress needs to stop making itself so available for manipulation, or more precisely they need to stop financing their own personal wealth and power by selling access to the 'control'.
Business contributes to the economy, it drives it not controls it, there should be as little artificial control put in the way as possible. Control is where the corruption is (contributions to congress in return for exemptions and bailouts) and it's where the failures lie (ACORN/Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac/ mortgages to unqulified borrowers in the name of 'fairness').

The Obama solution to everything seems to be give government complete control, without even specifying the details just pass the Bill without even writing it, then they will fix problems as they pop up by tweaking the legislation later!
That is a recipe for complete disaster!

[Krom]

Err yeah that was a poor choice of words, replace \"private industry\" with \"big business\" and you should get what I was thinking.

Our economy is built on the backs of consumers and small business but right now the whole system is bias for huge businesses. Money has to circulate in the economy for it to work and right now all the money is pooling up in big business pockets and stagnating. Communism is exactly what the big businesses want, guaranteed socialized profit! These huge government bailouts either should have never come, or should have come attached with a huge breakup order. But instead banks started merging and hoarding, and Government Motors is as huge and badly managed as ever.

Right now the direction we are headed towards is \"big business AND big government\" or worse \"big business IS big government\", two wrongs don't make a right.

Will, like you say total government control isn't going to work, but right now the government is practically controlled by big business anyway so it would just be flipping the coin so the other side is showing. So do you have a solution to it? Break up the big government? How will a broken up and smaller government fight huge business interests? Or for that matter how will a broken up smaller government made up of big business interests be any better? Should we break up the big businesses too? Can we?
Can you propose a single solution to anything or do you only deal in problems?

[VonVulcan]

Whew. You had me worried there for a minute until I found it came from an extreme right wing, conservapedia supporting, web site.

Bee

Looks to me like the info comes from the congressional record, the site it is reported on is irrelevant. You expect to get this kind of info from your Obama approved sites?


Is the air getting stale in that hole in the sand you have your head buried in?

[Duper]

Nice save Krom.

[Will Robinson]

...So do you have a solution to it? Break up the big government? How will a broken up and smaller government fight huge business interests?

Not broken just trimmed down (see below for more details)

... for that matter how will a broken up smaller government made up of big business interests be any better?

There's the focus of my solution, the current corrupt connection between government and business. Under my plan government will not "be made up of big business".

... Should we break up the big businesses too? Can we?

Not necessarily break it up but disconnect the dependency of the politician on those with deep pockets and you eliminate the majority of the incentive for a politician to put corporate interests above the voter. In fact you guarantee the voter will mean more than the big donors because my solution would demand there are NO BIG DONORS.

*Pass the FairTax (or anything like it) This does a lot of good things but for the sake of this discussion it removes the Congress' ability to craft an exemption or corporate welfare loophole in the ever morphing tax code.

*Change the campaign donation limit to something modest and have the government mandate a portion of TV and Radio time for the candidates, The debates will now be run by a collection of universities instead of the democrat and republican party's!!! As if if it was ever a good idea to let the parties control that!

*(more anti-party stuff in the works but not fleshed out for this discussion)

*Outlaw lobbiests and anything that tries to hide the same practice behind a different face. Within my proposal is the mechanism for groups or individuals to have an audience with the Congress so there is no loss of "the right to free speech" BUT there would be no legal way to donate/bribe any member of Congress. Congressmen who used to spend the vast majority of their time chasing and enjoying the donations/favors/under the table deals/ lining up a lobbiest job for themselves upon retirement from office etc. would suddenly have a lot of free time. Free time which my solution would fill by having them serve as...wait for it...GASP...as representatives of the citizens!!! OMG what a concept

Right now they only work something like half the months of the year in Washington, of those six months they show up in town on Monday night or Tuesday morning, make it in to the job around 11am and the first thing they do when they 'clock in' is have lunch...then they hang out and talk to each other and go back to their apartments and mistresses! (I'm not making this up or exaggerating either). Then they return on Wednesday morning to 'work' a full day *cough*long lunch/maybe some golf *cough* and then on Thursday they only 'work' a half day because...get this, and I quote, "So we can get ready to leave on Friday morning to fly back home"

Well I propose they work similar hours to the average working man. 40 hours a week. They are notified by a random draw which committee they will serve on and it is those committees that will hear the pleas of the special interests of the country. Now instead of behind the scenes lobbing with all that corruption the corporate interests (or any group) can come plead their case in the committee hearings. You want a bail out for your bank or a new law to help you achieve some goal? Tell it to the committee...
The members won't even know which committee they serve on until shortly before they convene so it will be dificult to bribe them in advance and the penalty for that will be severe, SEVERE.

As a corporate interest or group here's your situation:

All that money that the lobbiests used to spread around will now have to be spent convincing the citizen voter to ask their representatives to legislate in your favor. Run commercials, make your needs known to the citizens, or just stand on the corners and hand out $100 bills or just look pathetic and beg, I don't care.
The point is, besides appearing at the hearings to ask congress for help, the only other legal way to get what you want will now depend on you convincing the citizen voters to contact their representatives and plead your case for you so when your cause is brought before the congress the politicians, who's only concerns now lie squarely upon the contentment of their constituents, will decide your fate free of your big money influence.

This will put the media/press back on track because they will be able to pick apart the corporate attempts at 'swaying the citizen voters to back their requests.
The press doesn't get to hear the deals that currently sway congress but if those negotiations suddenly become a public appeal by the special interests to the citizen voter the light of day will be all over the motives behind those requests.

Can you propose a single solution to anything or do you only deal in problems?

Yes. Sort of a complex solution if you want to call it a single one...but yes.

[Krom]

I like it, a lot of it sounds like good ideas, if we can get the traction to move reform like that forward anyway. It sounds like it would certainly help clean out some of the mess and bureaucracy so we could move forward with actually being a proper government instead of whatever you want to call it now... \"dumberment\"?

What would you think of adding in some wording along the lines of \"Any bill proposed by a senator or congressperson must have been crafted and written by that senator or congressperson.\"? Force them to actually write and understand bills they propose and what effects they would have. And to lock up any potential loopholes that lobbying efforts could attempt to use to get bad or otherwise special interest legislation into the system. It might also help to keep thousand page monstrosities with hundreds of little piggyback clauses that don't belong from showing up or getting voted on.

For instance: I think legislation to protect children on the internet might be considerably stronger and won't have to come up as frequently if it isn't loaded to the brim with media conglomerate friendly copyright clauses. Or bills like the one Senator McCain (who freely admits knowing nothing about computers or the internet) recently proposed \"The Internet Freedom Act of 2009\" which will likely have the exact opposite effect on consumers than you would expect from its title.

It would also be something for the representatives to do during that 40 hours a week. What do you think?

[Insurrectionist]

What about this states opt-out thing they are talkin about? So if the state you live in does opt-out you don't have to get their government run public option. You can bet that you will still have to pay for it by paying your higher taxes so other states can have their public option. Almost makes me want to live on the streets and not work so I can become a drain on society and get free stuff too.

[Tunnelcat]

Krom's right, the private insurance industry already 'defines' the cost effectiveness of each medical condition it oversees. That's why they have 'pre-approval forms' for you to fill out or other draconian measures if you want something done. If they think it's going to cost too much, they'll deny coverage without a blink of an eye or sadness in their little icy hearts (sounds just like the big, bad government, don't it?). If they think that you're going to cost them too much profit in the future because of some preexisting condition, they'd just as soon drop your sorry, sick butt in the street. Sayonara and thank you for your money we took.

The opt-out proposal is just plain ridiculous. It's only a ploy to try and get Olympia Snow's 'yes' vote on this whole sordid mess and call it 'bipartisan'! It certainly isn't going to cut our health care costs anytime soon. Instead, it will just prolong this country's health misery death spiral before the system finally augers into the ground. These STUPID, CLUELESS, IDIOT congressmen/women are selling us out to the insurance industry and Obama's probably going to OK it just to get a bill passed! What's next, our souls?

As for Krom and Will's government reform suggestions, WoW is right! Never have I heard such a good set of intelligent ideas anywhere out there as a way to correct our screwed up system of government. The question is HOW to implement some of those ideas. Our government is so entrenched with big business ties that I don't think it will be possible to divorce them from each other without a major revolution by the people.

The only idea that seems a little marginal is the Fair Tax Act. It sounds good in proposal, but it needs a little more refining on the figures before I'm comfortable with it. There are a lot more pluses than minuses however.

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinni ... irtax.html

I say we vote in Krom for U.S. President!

[Spidey]

*sigh* Typical, Will has the ideas to return the government back to the people, but Krom wants to make it bigger, and turn control of “big business” over to it…

Guess who tc nominates for president.

**just teasing…

I like some of those ideas, but what are we going to do with the constitution…

[Tunnelcat]

*sigh* Typical, Will has the ideas to return the government back to the people, but Krom wants to make it bigger, and turn control of “big business” over to it…

Guess who tc nominates for president.

**just teasing…

I like some of those ideas, but what are we going to do with the constitution…

Where did Krom say he WANTS to make government bigger and turn it over to the control of big business? I distinctly read him as AGAINST the present takeover of our government BY 'big business'. He voiced all my objections to the way our government has been corrupted by corporate interests and Wall Street! Did I read you wrong Krom?

Yes, Will did come up with the good suggestions, most of which I'm for, but I'm afraid I couldn't vote for him as president because of his past stance here. He just didn't seem stand up for these same principles when Bush (with the Dems help of course) was busy marrying 'big business', the military (the military industrial complex) and government and GROWING said government for the last eight years. Now if he'd ranted on and on about all the crap Bush was doing for the past 8 years as much as he's NOW ranting about Obama's policies (a lot of which I'm NOT in favor of myself either), I'd have a different opinion. If you have a link to one of your old posts to prove me wrong Will, post it for me.

Also, the Fair Tax Act is not something I'm all in for. After talking to my husband about it, we came to the conclusion that a consumption tax would be the most detrimental to lower and middle income wage earners. The highest income earners would come out ahead since they don't spend a large proportion of their income on consumable items. Sure, they'd pay large taxes when they bought big ticket items, but it's the 'percentage' of their income that they spend on consumables that would be lower than say a comparable straight income tax, so the government would come up short. The people in the higher tax bracket tend to invest what they earn for maximum wealth gain, not productivity or consumption.

What we really need is a simpler tax system that would encourage these corporate bigwigs and stockholders to invest in their companies and promote the growth and health of their companies. Right now, they milk a company for all it's worth, suck the foundation out from under it, line their OWN pockets with their ill gotten profits, sell it at a loss and RUN with the money, which seems to please and profit only Wall Street and themselves.

Spidey, I don't think the framers of the Constitution ever envisioned the corporate takeover of our government, so I'm not sure of how we would solve than little problem. Anyone in power NOW would just rewrite, amend or worse, suspend it in their favor. Catch 22. This country is being royally SCREWED!

[Krom]

Where did Krom say he WANTS to make government bigger and turn it over to the control of big business? I distinctly read him as AGAINST the present takeover of our government BY 'big business'. He voiced all my objections to the way our government has been corrupted by corporate interests and Wall Street! Did I read you wrong Krom?

You read correctly.

I'm all for smaller government, it is probably much more difficult to hide some forms of corruption in a smaller government. But smaller government alone won't solve our present or future economic problems, the government has wasteful, useless or outright excessive powers in some places, and lacks sufficient powers to do what it should in others.

Many of the industries that I see having problems are either new industries or older existing industries growing to their largest while exploring new territory. The one constant is that many of the problems and concepts are entirely new and have never been dealt with by any governing body before. However at the moment our government is old, massive, inflexible and unable to keep up with rapidly changing times. We don't need big government with massively expanded powers, nor can we get along with a tiny government with weak powers, we need a government that is limited to the correct size and flexibility without being impotent. And right now we are too far on the massive and impotent sides of the scales, which is letting big business exploit us.

[Will Robinson]

...The people in the higher tax bracket tend to invest what they earn for maximum wealth gain, not productivity or consumption.

What we really need is a simpler tax system that would encourage these corporate bigwigs and stockholders to invest in their companies and promote the growth and health of their companies....

(TC, one side note: investments don't magically return high gain without being tied to productivity (dot.com bubbles and insurance rackets aside) so for the most part your logic that rich people don't help drive the economy with their investments is a little weak but lets not bog down on that one right now)

The beauty of the FairTax system is it can not be implimented without the abolishment of the Internal Revenue service. The bill states clearly that it doesn't become law until midnight of the day the 16th amendment is repealed. This is a key point because if you think you can leave the 16th amendment in place and just change the tax code to a flat rate and expect the government to never make changes to the code again to provide corporate welfare you are nuts!
So pick any program you want, I just picked the FairTax because it is the best I've seen. By the way, the Treasury Dept. isn't being very forth coming on the data it provides which the detractors of the FairTax rely heavily upon...not surprising since the FairTax will nueter the government like nothing since the revolution!
Also, when picking on the plans effective tax rate, 30%...34%...whatever...what do you think the tax rate will be if you leave the tax code in the control of the government?!?! A few points difference is the least of your worries at that point! We all know no matter what tax plan you use the middle class will bear the brunt of it. Obama is about to unleash the giant expansion of government so outrageous he purposely wants the HealthCare reform to not go into effect UNTIL AFTER his re-election because he knows he's going to rape everyone with a job on this! It is such a big hurry we need to vote before the bill is even written...BUT..we need to wait a few years before it actually goes into effect?!?! You have to be smoking a big crack pipe to not see the sack of bull feces he's dumping on us with that one!!!

So while you fear that middle class might see a few points difference than the FairTax proponents project consider the alternative - Not stopping the current system which is like a fire out of control and add to it the Gasoline that is Obama's domestic agenda and tell me which has the end result of taxing the middle class more?!?!

Go to the FairTax web site and dig into it some, there are some really good net results of this beyond the amazing benefit of neutering Congress' ability to sell out our future in their cancerous power game.
For example, where will all the worlds investors go to put their money to work when the U.S. is a no capital gains market? Why would they invest in any other country when the U.S. is spotting them a bunch of percentage points at the outset?!? A nice big boost in the economy would result from that plan.

But lets keep the details of FairTax separate from this discussion. Hell, make it any plan with a flat tax that also abolishes the 16th amendment and I'm fine, just make sure the new code follows the same principle which is to prohibit arbitrarily adjustable rates because it is in those selective applications of rates that the corruption lies and the empowerment of Congress feeds.

And yes Krom, Congress should be able to explain the bills they vote on and they should be posted long before the vote and they should be without earmarks and riders etc.

It's just completely ridiculous the system we have allowed them to create! And the most incideous part of all is the way they have convinced the majority that the only way to vote is as a member of one of the two party's!
It's way past time for us to realize there are three players in the game not two.
There are two parties, and there are the citizen voters.
When the hell did we give up our autonomy as Americans and enlist into the servitude of a political party!?!?

[Spidey]

Did you read the “just teasing” part?

I said that because of Krom’s comment about big business needing big government to control it (paraphrase)

“So do you have a solution to it? Break up the big government? How will a broken up and smaller government fight huge business interests?”

It was a joke!

[Spidey]

I for one need “big business”, the only way my tiny little business runs is…the ones above me are larger…all the way up to the top of the food chain, that being the ones that actually get the resources from the ground…it’s called “economy of scale”* and without it…the economy would spiral out of control with high prices. (or lack of resources)

People always complain about “big oil” well just who is going to put out all the money for exploration & giant offshore drilling rigs….mom and pop oil inc?

I think we need to take a breath here, and decide what really is the problem, and it’s not “big business”, it’s the government that’s out of control.

I have the perfect example…the breakup of the phone company. In the beginning we had a bazillion phone companies, and hundreds of wires up and down each street, people couldn’t talk to people on other systems…etc. Well in its wisdom, government made the decision to create one single phone company…the best company that ever was IMHO. We had cheap local service subsidized by long distance, and if you were poor, you could get a “party line”. Now come forward, government in its reverse wisdom…breaks up the phone company…and now we have cheap long distance subsidized by expensive local…go figure.

I understand how easy it is to blame “big business”, but at least narrow it down to the ones that really deserve the rap…

Banks…
Insurance companies…

Banks: I would change “too big to fail” to “too big to save”.

I think a bank only has to be but so big to properly serve the community, a large city bank can operate as efficiently as a national one. IMO

Insurance Companies: Well these things are abominations right from the start, and have no “economy of scale” no matter how large they are. It’s a big lie being told by the supporters of “reform” that if you get everyone in the “pool” the cost will be spread out. In fact insurance really only works if you use the dreaded “pick and choose” because if you have “everyone” in the pool, you will have many more high risk customers that overwhelm the “economy of scale”.

Insurance is a fraud to begin with…and I frankly don’t care if they survive, or not.

I don’t want “affordable insurance” I want affordable “health care“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DAMN IT!!


Note* economy of scale is the same here as efficiency of scale.

[dissent]

The Public Plan, Again

The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more "choice" and "competition") to expand government power. But why would a plan tied to Medicare control health spending, when Medicare hasn't? From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers -- and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting. Congress periodically improves Medicare benefits, and there's a limit to how much squeezing reimbursement rates can check costs. Doctors and hospitals already complain that low payments limit services or discourage physicians from taking Medicare patients.

Even Hacker concedes that without reimbursement rates close to Medicare's, the public plan would founder. If it had to "negotiate rates directly with providers" -- do what private insurers do -- the public plan could have "a very hard time" making inroads, he writes. Hacker opposes such weakened versions of the public plan.

And here’s the thing. Without an effective public option, the Obama health care reform will be simply a national version of the health care reform in Massachusetts: a system that is a lot better than nothing but has done little to address the fundamental problem of a fragmented system, and as a result has done little to control rising health care costs.

Right now the health insurers are promising to deliver major cost savings. But history shows that such promises can’t be trusted. As President Obama said in his letter, we need a serious, real public option to keep the insurance companies honest.

So here’s some free advice to members of Congress: While you are enjoying your August recess and town hall meetings, instead of arguing about whether to have a public option, argue about the ground rules.

To the Republicans, I say this: If you can get real assurances that the public option has to break even, and that it will get no special deals from suppliers, let the Democrats have it but ask for concessions on tort reform in return. (That could actually save some money.) The resulting public plan will be too small to notice.

To the Democrats, I say this: If you want competition in health care, you won’t get it if the public option can make deals its competitors can’t. So either give the Republicans hard assurances that the public option would have to break even and not get special treatment, or, better yet, just give it up to ensure that some useful health care reform is passed. A public option is neither necessary nor sufficient for achieving the real goals of reform, and those goals are too important to risk losing the war.

An important question about any public provider of health insurance is whether it would have access to taxpayer funds. If not, the public plan would have to stand on its own financially, as private plans do, covering all expenses with premiums from those who signed up for it.

But if such a plan were desirable and feasible, nothing would stop someone from setting it up right now. In essence, a public plan without taxpayer support would be yet another nonprofit company offering health insurance. The fundamental viability of the enterprise does not depend on whether the employees are called “nonprofit administrators” or “civil servants.”

In practice, however, if a public option is available, it will probably enjoy taxpayer subsidies. Indeed, even if the initial legislation rejected them, such subsidies would be hard to avoid in the long run. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants created by federal law, were once private companies. Yet many investors believed — correctly, as it turned out — that the federal government would stand behind Fannie’s and Freddie’s debts, and this perception gave these companies access to cheap credit. Similarly, a public health insurance plan would enjoy the presumption of a government backstop.

Such explicit or implicit subsidies would prevent a public plan from providing honest competition for private suppliers of health insurance. Instead, the public plan would likely undercut private firms and get an undue share of the market.