(Untitled)

[kateorman]

I'm dubious about opinion pieces which paint an entire part of the political spectrum with one brush, which The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult, over at the Huffington Post, arguably does. But it's worth skipping over those exasperated opening paragraphs to the meat of the matter:"The US is the only major industrialized country that does

Comments

[outsdr]

Even those of us lucky enough to have health insurance don't have it so great. I pay $300 a month for a policy that has a $3,000 deductible. Once that's met, the insurance company will pay half my expenses until I meet another $2,500 deductible. After that, I'm not sure what happens, because legends say no one has ever made it that far.

(Before the $3,000 deductible is met, the insurance company pays for nothing- preventative care, prescriptions, nada.)

[brewsternorth]

*nods* I think for the many millions who are actually uninsured, there are similarly large numbers of *under*insured - those who are on policies with weird deductibles, or with restrictive lists of "in-network" medicos, or what have you. Problem is, I wonder how many people currently opposing the public option *don't know* they're underinsured because they've had the good fortune not to need to claim on it?

[karjack]

Until that 70% who say it's immoral to retain the current system gets fired up and stays fired up, the system isn't going to change. There is too much money changing hands between politicians and the medical industry. It's too profitable to write off 18,000 citizens who, let's face it, are probably too poor to matter in our wealth-obsessed culture. The worst of the disruptions are coming from paid protesters, and I'll give you one guess who's bankrolling them

[kateorman]

Americans are looking out and seeing that we aren't the envy of the civilized world.

That's a good point - I wonder if that's the thinking behind the lies about Britain's NHS.

[karjack]

It's the same old lies as before. It's just that now the lies are spreading across the world within seconds and British people are able to weigh in on what's being said. Of course, for the isolationist wing-nuts who are just want to 'win' at all cost, their words won't hold any weight whatsoever. But for the people who honestly want to know what's going on, those voices are so important. Fifteen years ago they wouldn't be heard in numbers large enough to matter. Now, it's a different world, and thank goodness for that

[wyldemusick]

Yes. There's a definite subset of Americans who would like to see the Canadian and UK systems go down in flames, mainly as a validation.

Big Pharma and the insurance companies would like to see all the public systems crash and burn because it would mean they'd be able to jack up prices worldwide and make even more obscene profits.

[ianmcin]

there's a consensus in US politics that this is wrong and needs fixing.

Correction: there's a consensus among the US citizenry that this is wrong and needs fixing. If that consensus extended to the political level, we'd have something done by now.

[kateorman]

Sorry - should've linked to this again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/health/policy/01health.html?_r=1

"Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance. Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s medical history or current illness. All insurers would have to offer a minimum package of benefits, to be defined by the federal government, and nearly all Americans would be required to have insurance... Lawmakers also agree on the need to provide federal subsidies to help make insurance affordable for people with modest incomes. For poor people, Medicaid eligibility would be expanded."

[jvowles]

And the argument against doing that, of course, is that you're limiting all the cost-cutting tools that insurance companies use to make money.

Which is why I advocate taking profit out of the equation whenever possible, at least for basic services.

[strangedave]

The needless deaths are just part of the problem, as you say. The US health care system generally gets worse outcomes on almost every measure for a higher percentage of GDP than every other OECD country. There are huge numbers of people with chronic problems that receive very limited care - often chronic problems that keep them out of work so they can't get better health care, problems that under state health care would receive significant ongoing care. There are the issues about various self-employed people (especially creatives) who have a second job for no reason other than health care. There are people who can't change employer easily due to health care issues. Distortions of the economic system due companies carrying health care costs as a large percentage of labor costs (this is what made the US steel industry uncompetitive, for example). It doesn't even keep costs down for insurers - US health care has a culture of over-servicing and defensively testing in order to both defend themselves against litigation, and retain control

[wyldemusick]

The trouble is, the Democrats are incredibly adept at shooting themselves in the nuts -- although there's some growing resentment at the Rethugs within the greater majority of the Democratic group (and even amongst some of the Blue Dogs like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who's the target of both sides now -- the teabaggers are riding her like a prize pony here in Tucson; Giffords' sympathies are straying away from the right as a result), which could mean some nigh-unto explosive action on this issue, rather than the folding that's been going on.

Part of the problem right now, though, is that Obama's tram pretty much blew any hope of controlling Big Pharma's greed by essentially agreeing that there'll be no price controls. Smarrrrt move.

Overall, then...a plague on both their houses.

[kateorman]

the Democrats are incredibly adept at shooting themselves in the nuts

My mind (being the jumble of junk that it is) immediately recalled the Bloom County about hunting the elusive Liberal:

[kelemvor]

IIRC from "The West Wing", a blue dog is a Democrat who generally votes Republican to stay in power.

[wyldemusick]

Just incidentally, I'm one of those people who got bankrupted by health costs while insured. Happened as a result of the severe pneumonia I had years ago, which put me in Burbank Hospital for a week. The condition essentially put me out of work for quite some time (and on disability), and the insurance deductible was $5,000 -- the actual total for the stay was closer to $30,000.

This also left me with a pre-existing condition, as it brought back my asthma full tilt. That got expensive too.