Health Care Reform - the morning after

[nathan28]

§
But I can't escape the feeling this whole fucking thing was engineered from the moment Obama was (s)elected.

I know what you mean, S.

And, given the 21st century congressional tendency to name legislation in a way that gives us a sick Orwellian tummy-ache, I think that the title of the health care thing says it all: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The title tells us that we're screwed and it's going to be expensive.

To take a less conspiratorial view, I think that it was largely political theater. What I mean is that there are in fact needed regulatory reforms in this bill, but it hardly marks a "historical" moment--more like some House page found some misplaced stuff from the docket in the '80s. But it's theatrical in that the Dumocrats are moving on a trajectory to capture the Republican's business and moderate base, because leftie dem-voters have been maligned but loyal for over a decade now. I suspect the intent is to reduce the Rethuglicans to increasing reliance on their mouthbreathing, racist retardofascist base--which only really finds a natural ally on the business end with Erik Prince (H.L. Hunt 2K10) / Koch axis. IOW, Wall St. would rather donate to a gay-friendly, weed-smoking party of business than a party that balances Wall St.'s interest with those of trailer-park dwelling minority that thinks dinosaur bones are a hoax perpetuated by a man with horns and a tail: at least, that's the Democrat's plan.

I'll likewise note that in the '90s, when health ins. was a political item, the "illegal immigrants placing a burden on our system" thing got big.

Now, this is entirely speculative as well. But I think it's another alternative to the idea that it was entirely planned: the specifics weren't, but it fits a general pattern that suggests there is an overarching plan.

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

secrets wrote:

The thing is, I'm poor. I can't afford health insurance. Now, when I get sick I can relish that fact that I am sick and a criminal, because I didn't buy the mandated insurance. Great! It will create the perception that it's all my fault because I didn't go along and buy the insurance.

It's kinda that way now. Those I know who are small business owners like me and don't have coverage and need care on a "cash basis" always seem to tell me that they get attitude from receptionists, nurses, etc. like they are some sort of losers for not having insurance. But, the poor are losers in this country, we all know that, right?

(for those of you who think I am self-righteous or judgmental, I don't actually believe that last thing I wrote. I'm just illustrating a common perception).

[Jeff]

David Frum and the Closing of the Conservative Mind
Mar 25
Bruce Bartlett

As some readers of this blog may know, I was fired by a right wing think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis in 2005 for writing a book critical of George W. Bush's policies, especially his support for Medicare Part D. In the years since, I have lost a great many friends and been shunned by conservative society in Washington, DC.

Now the same thing has happened to David Frum, who has been fired by the American Enterprise Institute. I don't know all the details, but I presume that his Waterloo post on Sunday condemning Republicans for failing to work with Democrats on healthcare reform was the final straw.

Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/br ... alin-proud

[Occult Means Hidden]

Congress is roleplaying. It is all theater.

New health insurance requirement ... was GOP idea

WASHINGTON – Republicans were for President Barack Obama's requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.

The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that's been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.

Mitt Romney, weighing another run for the GOP presidential nomination, signed such a requirement into law at the state level as Massachusetts governor in 2006. At the time, Romney defended it as "a personal responsibility principle" and Massachusetts' newest GOP senator, Scott Brown, backed it. Romney now says Obama's plan is a federal takeover that bears little resemblance to what he did as governor and should be repealed.

Republicans say Obama and the Democrats co-opted their original concept, minus a mechanism they proposed for controlling costs. More than a dozen GOP attorneys general are determined to challenge the requirement in federal court as unconstitutional.

Starting in 2014, the new law will require nearly all Americans to have health insurance through an employer, a government program or by buying it directly. That year, new insurance markets will open for business, health plans will be required to accept all applicants and tax credits will start flowing to millions of people, helping them pay the premiums.

Those who continue to go without coverage will have to pay a penalty to the IRS, except in cases of financial hardship. Fines vary by income and family size. For example, a single person making $45,000 would pay an extra $1,125 in taxes when the penalty is fully phased in, in 2016.

Conservatives today say that's unacceptable. Not long ago, many of them saw a national mandate as a free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans — the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare. Most experts agree some kind of requirement is needed in a reformed system because health insurance doesn't work if people can put off joining the risk pool until they get sick.

In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon favored a mandate that employers provide insurance. In the 1990s, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, embraced an individual requirement. Not anymore.

"The idea of an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer was a Republican idea," said health economist Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. In 1991, he published a paper that explained how a mandate could be combined with tax credits — two ideas that are now part of Obama's law. Pauly's paper was well-received — by the George H.W. Bush administration.

"It could have been the basis for a bipartisan compromise, but it wasn't," said Pauly. "Because the Democrats were in favor, the Republicans more or less had to be against it."

Obama rejected a key part of Pauly's proposal: doing away with the tax-free status of employer-sponsored health care and replacing it with a standard tax credit for all Americans. Labor strongly opposes that approach because union members usually have better-than-average coverage and suddenly would have to pay taxes on it. But many economists believe it's a rational solution to America's health care dilemma since it would raise enough money to cover the uninsured and nudge people with coverage into cost-conscious plans.

Romney's success in Massachusetts with a bipartisan health plan that featured a mandate put the idea on the table for the 2008 presidential candidates.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who failed in the 1990s to require employers to offer coverage, embraced the individual requirement, an idea advocated by her Republican opponents in the earlier health care debate.

"Hillary Clinton believed strongly in universal coverage," said Neera Tanden, her top health care adviser in the 2008 Democratic campaign. "I said to her, 'You are not going to be able to say it's universal coverage unless you have a mandate.' She said, 'I don't want to run unless it's universal coverage.'"

Obama was not prepared to go that far. His health care proposal in the campaign required coverage for children, not adults. Clinton hammered him because his plan didn't guarantee coverage for all. He shot back that health insurance is too expensive to force people to buy it.

Obama remained cool to an individual requirement even once in office. But Tanden, who went on to serve in the Obama administration, said the first sign of a shift came in a letter to congressional leaders last summer in which Obama said he'd be open to the idea if it included a hardship waiver. Obama openly endorsed a mandate in his speech to a joint session of Congress in September.

It remains one of the most unpopular parts of his plan. Even the insurance industry is unhappy. Although the federal government will be requiring Americans to buy their products — and providing subsidies worth billions — insurers don't think the penalties are high enough.

Tanden, now at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, says she's confident the mandate will work. In Massachusetts, coverage has gone up and only a tiny fraction of residents have been hit with fines.

Brown, whose election to replace the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy almost led to the collapse of Obama's plan, said his opposition to the new law is over tax increases, Medicare cuts and federal overreach on a matter that should be left up to states. Not so much the requirement, which he voted for as a state lawmaker.

"In Massachusetts, it helped us deal with the very real problem of uncompensated care," Brown said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100327/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_requiring_insurance;_ylt=Ar7v829u5PFa2a2B4Ola98Ss0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM3NWp1YjFnBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzI3L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9vdmVyaGF1bF9yZXF1aXJpbmdfaW5zdXJhbmNlBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDOARzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNuZXdoZWFsdGhpbnM-

Fuckers. It's not a sport. You don't vote one way because everybody in your team has to oppose the other team. Assholes.

[Simulist]

"Because the Democrats were in favor, the Republicans more or less had to be against it."

Well, that pretty much sums it up. How can anyone without a serious brain disease or mental disorder maintain belief (or even suspended disbelief) in the Political Party Polka between these two has-beens of yesteryear?

This is like watching a rerun of the Lawrence Welk Show on continuous loop!

"Thank you-uh Bobby and-uh Cissy..."

(And you know which party plays "sissy.")

[ninakat]

David Frum and the Closing of the Conservative Mind
Mar 25
Bruce Bartlett

As some readers of this blog may know, I was fired by a right wing think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis in 2005 for writing a book critical of George W. Bush's policies, especially his support for Medicare Part D. In the years since, I have lost a great many friends and been shunned by conservative society in Washington, DC.

Now the same thing has happened to David Frum, who has been fired by the American Enterprise Institute. I don't know all the details, but I presume that his Waterloo post on Sunday condemning Republicans for failing to work with Democrats on healthcare reform was the final straw.

Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/br ... alin-proud

Priceless, really. And, of course, open confirmation of just how empty the game is between Dems and Repugs. All this revealing just lets many of us say "I told you so" but gives us absolutely no power whatsoever to change the course of events, especially the inevitable collapse. And they know that. Things are just too far gone, in virtually every realm except perhaps the spiritual. That's the only place I find solace now -- out in the garden planting and harvesting and communing with nature and my own inner worlds, my inner truths. They can't take that away, can they?

[Simulist]

Excellent analysis, Ninakat, as usual.

(And, no, they can't take the spiritual away by force, but they are fairly adept at inducing people to give it away.)

[DeltaDawn]

O.K... asking/pleading/begging for information to make all this go away.

Awwww shucks, tried to link but in AOL news, please read 18 myths about Health Reform Bill Debunked.....DAMN scary!!!

Now on to what I've been sent from Judges, Representives, Senators, etc.....Promise, will get son to show me how to do these simple things for ya'll, complicated for me, am trying!!

HB 3200 and concerns of officials (not all, I pulled out what concerned me the most)

Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally?.....Dawn's comment: Huh??????

Page 58 & 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account & will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. Dawn's comment: For real????, even if my rent & food isn't paid for yet???

Page 241 & 253: Dr's will be paid the same regardless of specialty & the government will set all Dr's fees....Dawn's comment: You mean I'll lose my husband because his heart surgeon & cardiologist will only get paid a little more than family practicioner?...would you go to school for 8 years more, just to make a little more than just treating colds, flu, and broken bones?????

Page 272, section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to patient's age. Dawn's comment: Sooo, and as stated on other pages of this & previous bills, instead you'll give me 'grief counseling' so I won't be a hinderance on fellow citizens???

Again I'm sorry for not learning to link yet, but read article that when Obama was asked if he & his family will take new health reform, he avoided questions. When our Representatives were asked if they would switch, their answer was, "We will definitely think about it." Dawn's comment: Why are you trying to make me accept something you won't???????

Sorry for the ranting, but have already stated, "I'm not an insured citizen, but am Scared to Pieces about this new 'wonderful' health bill, that was 'made' to help America!!! B.S.

[Simulist]

Where do you get this stuff, DeltaDawn?

As far as "learning to link" is concerned, all you have to do is copy the web address into the board's message window (like you did the items you're worried about); nothing fancy is required.

[DeltaDawn]

Simulist, because I have dinosaur Webtv, couldn't get the 'entire' link for the AOL news link. The pages and sections mentioned were sent to me in email from State Rep's & Senators showing they were also concerned about some things, as I'd written them about. I'm sorry, I tried to copy web addresses, but will get with son...but sigh, he's 22 and much tooo busy for mom's 'stuff'.

Please, I ask again, disprove what I've read, would be forever grateful!!!

[barracuda]

Geez, Dawn, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act are posted in full as a pdf here, so you can debunk this stuff yourself. You'll be happy to know that my brief perusal of pages 58 & 59 indicate nothing to me in the way of your suggestion.

[justdrew]

more lying republicans. it's all they ever do, lie lie lie... They've lived their lies so long they've damaged their brains if you ask me.

Republican IRS Expansion Claims 'Wildly Inaccurate'

With April 15 approaching, conservative hysteria about an alleged hidden cost of health care reform -- a small army of new IRS agents -- is gaining traction. One problem: Those claims are "wildly inaccurate".

As FactCheck amply documents, the new health care law specifically forbids the IRS to enforce criminal penalties against taxpayers who violate the individual mandate and doesn't allow for standard IRS collection techniques like liens. Plus, the IRS won't be double-checking health insurance certifications provided with tax returns.

Individuals without health insurance in 2014 face an added tax, and that's all -- nothing that requires the "16,500 new agents" that conservatives now claim the IRS needs to recruit.

That claim appears to have originated with a report released by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, stretching the rough estimates of Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf as far as possible and then basing the final number on a series of false assumptions.

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/

[JackRiddler]

What gets me is how easily these claims get repeated here.

Every new claim should be met with proper skepticism and checked before being posted under a sensationalist headline. We don't have to act as the Teabag Party's unwitting insect servants, do we?

That being said, I was stunned to hear the Census, which just switched its headquarters to a FEMA base, plans to demand the medical records of everyone who checked off "Caucasian" on the form.

[justdrew]

What gets me is how easily these claims get repeated here.

Every new claim should be met with proper skepticism and checked before being posted under a sensationalist headline. We don't have to act as the Teabag Party's unwitting insect servants, do we?

That being said, I was stunned to hear the Census, which just switched its headquarters to a FEMA base, plans to demand the medical records of everyone who checked off "Caucasian" on the form.

and they're taking your DNA from licking the envelope closed. use a moistened sponge. For freedom.

well, I've fallen for some bits and pieces here and there, when it's providence wasn't clearly sourced.

[Simulist]

more lying republicans. it's all they ever do, lie lie lie... They've lived their lies so long they've damaged their brains if you ask me.

Yes, the Republicans are indeed lying bastards. Good thing the Democrats almost never lie, or someone might be tempted to think both parties are lying sacks of shit.

Okay, one party is a bigger sack of shit — but unless someone just has a deranged craving for sacks full of shit, why bother with either of them?