Health Care Debate
Some thoughts:
1. The White House has identified Sarah Palin as a major threat to its plans for health care reform, pointing to her recent posts on Twitter. Protip: if your plan can be endangered by Sarah Palin's tweets, it's probably not a very good plan.
2. The Bush Administration refused to listen to the anti-war majority because, "You can't base policy on poll numbers." The Obama administration refuses to listen to the anti-health care bill majority because, "It's all manufactured anger." When do we get leaders who'll listen to the will of the people?
3. The DNC has decided that any citizen protests that oppose it are "mobs." Because insulting people who disagree with you is a great way to improve support for your legislation!
4. The reason why the pharmaceutical companies are in full support of Obama's health care reform movement: he promised them Medicare and the public option won't negotiate drug prices. Drug companies will get all their profits, paid for by taxpayers, no matter what Congress passes. They've also agreed to pay between 80-120 million to help mobilize (e.g. manufacture) support for health care reform. Most of the major insurance providers are also on board with the plan in exchange for getting government money to cover more people. So make no mistake: opposition is not being backed by private health sector bigwigs.
5. Someone really needs to tell Colbert that the more he makes fun of the people who are opposing the current health care reform measures, the more he looks like a plain jerk. Not the character Colbert, but the real guy. Good satire requires knowing the facts and then exaggerating from there, but he has yet to get his foundation straight. Stewart's so far done a much better job on the issue, despite (repeatedly) making the mistake of thinking the protests are being orchestrated by Fox News and/or the GOP. Do Libertarians and Conservative Democrats even exist for these two?
6. Nancy Pelosi says drowning out other people's opinions is "un-American." SEIU's leaders have told members to drown out anyone opposing the health care bill. Therefore, Pelosi thinks SEIU's leadership is un-American. (No, not really - just highlighting the obvious hypocrisy at work here.)
7. The counterargument, "Rationing isn't in the bill," misses the point. The proposed reform measures create an infrastructure where, in the event of budget shortfalls, rationing is introduced as a cost control method by its head bureaucrats. This is the plan as stated by Obama's own advisers: regulate access to service through broad managerial discretion powers that require no new laws to enact. If you think there won't be budget shortfalls, see Cash for Clunkers, Medicare, and the Post Office for good examples.
8. Obama elucidated on his vision of a public option: an independent non-profit subject to the same constraints as other companies with no unfair advantages in capital. In theory, it would drive competition without threatening the free market. In practice, you get Fannie and Freddie; congress sells leadership for contributions as it wields undue influence on the market. Congress instructs the non-profit to deliberately insure people at risk for high expenditures and to purchase stakes in similar insurance policies from the private sectors. Result: a subprime health insurance crisis.
9. In order for an insurance company to remain in business, it must take in more money than it pays out. It has to balance what a person will pay versus what the person will consume. Reforms that handicap this actuarial process threaten health care, because major insurance companies can be driven bankrupt. If this occurs, the government will either bail out the companies - purchasing stakes in them ala GM to control the companies completely and make them government entities - or let them fail so that their customers have to go on the public option. Either way ends with the government seizing greater control of the market and lays the foundation for a transition into single payer.
10. While "Death Panels" is a nice catchy phrase that people can latch onto with visceral distaste, it's also taken away from some of the less sensationalist critiques of the current reform legislation (see points 8 and 9). Even if a public option is entirely eliminated from the bill, the other measures of the reform still pose a problem. Only focusing on one area - the plans for rationing - allows the others to sneak past unchallenged.
11. The statement that the US healhcare system is "the best" and that "it needs improvement" are not at odds. You can be better than everyone around you at something but still have room to grow. So even though are health care system right now is still better than Canada's and the UK's for cancer survival rates, wait times, innovation, and other metrics, it could be a lot better if it was an actual free market system and not a mix of government-corporation.
12. Obama's solution to lack of competition is to create a complex system involving government creating competition artificially. What he doesn't mention is that the lack of competition stems directly from regulations by the government! Restoration of free market to health insurance requires a removal of government from the marketplace, not its increased presence. Obama's proposal is akin to a dam builder restricting water flow to a town, causing private water utilities to raise prices, and then proposing to tax the town to fund a complex series of government owned canals to re-route water from the reservoir to the town so the government can "compete" with the private suppliers to lower costs. The real solution is not found by debating what shape to make the canals, but by tearing down the dam!
1. The White House has identified Sarah Palin as a major threat to its plans for health care reform, pointing to her recent posts on Twitter. Protip: if your plan can be endangered by Sarah Palin's tweets, it's probably not a very good plan.
2. The Bush Administration refused to listen to the anti-war majority because, "You can't base policy on poll numbers." The Obama administration refuses to listen to the anti-health care bill majority because, "It's all manufactured anger." When do we get leaders who'll listen to the will of the people?
3. The DNC has decided that any citizen protests that oppose it are "mobs." Because insulting people who disagree with you is a great way to improve support for your legislation!
4. The reason why the pharmaceutical companies are in full support of Obama's health care reform movement: he promised them Medicare and the public option won't negotiate drug prices. Drug companies will get all their profits, paid for by taxpayers, no matter what Congress passes. They've also agreed to pay between 80-120 million to help mobilize (e.g. manufacture) support for health care reform. Most of the major insurance providers are also on board with the plan in exchange for getting government money to cover more people. So make no mistake: opposition is not being backed by private health sector bigwigs.
5. Someone really needs to tell Colbert that the more he makes fun of the people who are opposing the current health care reform measures, the more he looks like a plain jerk. Not the character Colbert, but the real guy. Good satire requires knowing the facts and then exaggerating from there, but he has yet to get his foundation straight. Stewart's so far done a much better job on the issue, despite (repeatedly) making the mistake of thinking the protests are being orchestrated by Fox News and/or the GOP. Do Libertarians and Conservative Democrats even exist for these two?
6. Nancy Pelosi says drowning out other people's opinions is "un-American." SEIU's leaders have told members to drown out anyone opposing the health care bill. Therefore, Pelosi thinks SEIU's leadership is un-American. (No, not really - just highlighting the obvious hypocrisy at work here.)
7. The counterargument, "Rationing isn't in the bill," misses the point. The proposed reform measures create an infrastructure where, in the event of budget shortfalls, rationing is introduced as a cost control method by its head bureaucrats. This is the plan as stated by Obama's own advisers: regulate access to service through broad managerial discretion powers that require no new laws to enact. If you think there won't be budget shortfalls, see Cash for Clunkers, Medicare, and the Post Office for good examples.
8. Obama elucidated on his vision of a public option: an independent non-profit subject to the same constraints as other companies with no unfair advantages in capital. In theory, it would drive competition without threatening the free market. In practice, you get Fannie and Freddie; congress sells leadership for contributions as it wields undue influence on the market. Congress instructs the non-profit to deliberately insure people at risk for high expenditures and to purchase stakes in similar insurance policies from the private sectors. Result: a subprime health insurance crisis.
9. In order for an insurance company to remain in business, it must take in more money than it pays out. It has to balance what a person will pay versus what the person will consume. Reforms that handicap this actuarial process threaten health care, because major insurance companies can be driven bankrupt. If this occurs, the government will either bail out the companies - purchasing stakes in them ala GM to control the companies completely and make them government entities - or let them fail so that their customers have to go on the public option. Either way ends with the government seizing greater control of the market and lays the foundation for a transition into single payer.
10. While "Death Panels" is a nice catchy phrase that people can latch onto with visceral distaste, it's also taken away from some of the less sensationalist critiques of the current reform legislation (see points 8 and 9). Even if a public option is entirely eliminated from the bill, the other measures of the reform still pose a problem. Only focusing on one area - the plans for rationing - allows the others to sneak past unchallenged.
11. The statement that the US healhcare system is "the best" and that "it needs improvement" are not at odds. You can be better than everyone around you at something but still have room to grow. So even though are health care system right now is still better than Canada's and the UK's for cancer survival rates, wait times, innovation, and other metrics, it could be a lot better if it was an actual free market system and not a mix of government-corporation.
12. Obama's solution to lack of competition is to create a complex system involving government creating competition artificially. What he doesn't mention is that the lack of competition stems directly from regulations by the government! Restoration of free market to health insurance requires a removal of government from the marketplace, not its increased presence. Obama's proposal is akin to a dam builder restricting water flow to a town, causing private water utilities to raise prices, and then proposing to tax the town to fund a complex series of government owned canals to re-route water from the reservoir to the town so the government can "compete" with the private suppliers to lower costs. The real solution is not found by debating what shape to make the canals, but by tearing down the dam!