Tag: Healthcare

Invisible Hand

Ezra Klein puts this simple concept as well as I’ve yet seen:

Liberals don’t think that Congress will pass a bill outlawing private insurance. They don’t think the Supreme Court will render a decision naming WellPoint “cruel and unusual.” Rather, they think the market will, well, work: The public option will provide better service at better prices and people will choose it. Or, conversely, that the competition will better the private insurance industry and that people won’t need to choose it.

But that confidence rests on a very simple premise: The public sector does a better job providing health-care coverage than the private sector. If that proves untrue – and I would imagine most every conservative would confidently assume that that’s untrue – the plan will fail. The public option will not provide better coverage at better prices, and so it will not be chosen, and it will languish. Indeed, if it languishes, it will lack customers and thus lack bargaining power and economies of scale, and get worse even as the private insurers get better. In that scenario, the public option not only fails, but it discredits single-payer entirely.

The liberals are willing to bet that they’re right. It’s not a sneaky strategy: It’s an up-front wager. The conservatives are not, however, willing to bet that they’re wrong. They’re willing to say the public option will fail, but not give consumers the chance to decide that for themselves.

If we had a working government, maybe we’d get to try things, work for good policy, and ultimately get to the best outcome for the American people, whatever that might be. Why are the conservatives in this argument so afraid of The Market? What don’t they want us to find out?

Common Experience

See if this rings a bell with regard to your typical visit to the doctor’s office:

A [patient] walked in and was generally walked right back into a physician’s office. They get good care. They are not rushed. They are examined thoroughly

[Patients] receive top-notch, wait-free care, and money is largely no object. [Patients] pay a flat annual fee of $503, and it covers all expenses – without submitting claim forms to their insurer. Despite soaring costs throughout the health care system, prices have been largely stagnant in [this practice] for 17 years.

Man, America really does have the best possible healthcare system in the world. How could that possibly be improved upon? Plus, everybody gets a choice of 10 plans with nationwide coverage networks. Pretty fantastic, eh? Oh, wait, that’s not your experience? Oh, right, that’s the in-house health clinic that members of Congress provide for themselves. Worth noting that many who don’t even pay the paltry $503 fee still take advantage of the care.

Is it any wonder we can’t get reform passed?

Resolved: All healthcare benefits for sitting members of Congress shall be sunset effective December 31, 2009. Furthermore, all members of Congress shall be ineligible for Medicare or any other government supplied benefits for themselves or their families during their term of elected (or appointed) service beyond the normal provisions for their salary.

It’s the only way to get an honest attempt at reform.

Why not 100 votes?

Ben Nelson, (D) of Fucktardia, has lots of fascinating thoughts to share on the healthcare fight:

Voters should be able to evaluate “what’s been done and what remains to be done” before they go to the polls, Nelson said.

“Public debate can occur in the context of an election,” he added.

So, then, the outcome of the 2008 elections, the one held less than a year ago, in which healthcare was a central, if not very nearly THE CENTRAL issue, which came up in debates at the primary and national level…those elections: not to be counted. There should be several more elections, and if healthcare proponents can win each in a landslide: then and only then we can begin to consider taking up real reform.

But stopping with that sort of vaguely insane talk isn’t enough. Not for Ben Nelson:

But Nelson said 60 votes isn’t enough. The Nebraska Democrat said he’d only feel comfortable voting for a bill that he knows can get at least 65 votes.

“I think anything less than that would challenge its legitimacy,” he said.

Why stop there? Why settle for some interim position? The only possible outcome here is full commitment: that’s it, unanimous vote. Anything else would be unacceptable. And, presumably, after a unanimous vote and a Presidential signature, you’d need to let the states decide, unanimously, whether or not to implement. Why, it all makes perfect sense. It’s the only way for it to be legitimate.

Explain that to me

Barack Obama reports, you decide:

“I was up at the G20 – just a little aside – I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them,” the president said. “One of the leaders – I won’t mention who it was – he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind.

"He says, ‘Barack, explain to me this health care debate.’

"He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you – I don’t – that doesn’t make sense to me. Explain that to me.’”

via Jack Tapper

[T]he time has come–and in fact, it is long overdue–for them to begin forcefully making the case that being a member in good standing of the party’s Senate caucus means supporting cloture motions on key legislation even if a given senator intends to vote against it.

–Ed Kilgore, Closed Vote; The New Republic

Obama interviewed by GOP Talking Points

Obama: George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase…. What if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…
Stephanopoulos: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”
Obama: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.
Stephanopoulos: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.
Obama: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.

The Flashpoint

“[Obama said] ‘everyone should get the same deal as members of Congress.’ But you take the text of these bills, and not only are you not getting the same deal as members of Congress, who get a dozen or more choices in the D.C. area, but people aren’t going to get any choice at all. It’ll be tethered to a policy that many people might think is pretty crummy. Some of those policies will be high-deductible, going up 10 or 12 percent a year. And people are going to think that’s pretty crummy.

[…]

As for the people who don’t have coverage and are making $65,000, those people look at Washington and see us saying you’ll have to pay 13 percent of your income, and then we’re going to clobber you with all these co-pays and deductibles, and some government official comes and says, ‘We’ll give you an exemption’? No middle-class people will be attending rallies holding signs saying “thank you for my exemption!”

— Ron Wyden, speaking the Truth from on high, via Ezra Klein