I’ve never read much of Ezra Klein’s stuff in the past, even though it’s been highly praised elsewhere. But there’s no question that yesterday’s opinion piece and today’s online chat are by far the most knowledgeable discussions of health care I’ve ever read in an American newspaper. Read the whole thing, but here’s a sample:
Ezra Klein: No. We don’t have the best health care in the world. Not on any broad measure or metric. We don’t have the most cost effective health care in the world. We don’t have the best outcomes in the world. We can’t even manage to give everyone access to health care.
That said, there are certain diseases, like breast cancer, that we are uniquely good at treating. But then we lag on diseases like diabetes. It’s a mixed bag. And it’s a mixed bag that we are spending twice as much as most other countries on. So it’s important to say this clearly: We have a very, even uniquely, bad health-care system. Not for every individual. But in the aggregate. As a country, we spend far too much and get much too little.
[….]Charlottesville, Va.: Peggy Noonan had a column over the weekend listing three points that damage support of health-care reform. The first one seemed a bit odd — that doctors sometimes undercharge patients who are strapped financially. Is there any evidence out there supporting or debunking this? Any comments on the article overall?
Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare (Wall Street Journal, July 25)
Ezra Klein: Didn’t see her article, but it’s actually the opposite: Doctors overcharge patients who are strapped financially.
This is actually sort of intuitive. A piece of fruit at a good grocery store is pretty cheap. A piece of fruit at a corner bodega is often not. That’s because Safeway negotiate large discounts on behalf of their customers while the bodega doesn’t. Similarly, people with insurance — be it Medicare or a large employer’s plan — have negotiated discounts. But people with bad insurance, or no insurance, don’t. And so they end up paying a lot more.
I’ve taken a lot of shit here for supposedly overestimating the effect the punditocracy has on our government. But I sincerely believe that if Klein had had an public opinion page gig for the past 17 years and David Broder hadn’t, this country would be in a different place. Even though that means Klein would have started when he was eight.
Jody
When Klein was 8 he was already smarter than Broder.
mai naem
HuffPo has an article saying that Baucus’ committee has come out with their bill which has no public option. Has nothing for forcing businesses to provide insurance for employees. But ofcourse there’s a mandate for everybody to have insurance. And yes, the insurance cos. can’t refuse based on preexisting conditions. But so what? If you have an insurance co. selling insurance, it doesn’t say anything about what they are providing. If they accept $5,000 deductibles and $500 premiums it isn’t a whole lot better than the current system. Meanwhile the fuckers who put this together have platinum plated health care provided by taxpayers like me. What’s wrong with the picture here?
JGabriel
Ezra Klein’s Second Grade Essay On Healthcare:
Yep, smarter than Broder.
.
cleek
Ezra Klein is a far-left leftist shill in the radical pockets of big socialism!
/bluedog
jwb
Of course, if my cat had had Broder’s opinion page gig for the past 17 years and Broder hadn’t, the country would be in a better place. Broder is a cancer on the body politic.
cleek
oh come on. fix the friggin filter so that so-ci-al-ism is not filtered.
General Winfield Stuck
Do you feel lucky today, punk. Well. do ya?
Jay C
Even though that means Klein would have started when he was eight.
And his columns would still probably have been better than David Broder’s.
Not that that’s such a high bar to vault – even for an eight-year-old
jl
@Jody: I agree. Probably some ethical issues at working an eight year old kid so hard. But your bright, conscientious, eight year old who had discipline could probably go up against a High Villager, and kick ass more often than not.
Maybe we could have upper grade school and Jr High kids do class projects and publish them across the page from the Broders. That would work OK, and we could give them extra credit. Put some lawyers on it, see what they say.
The Grand Panjandrum
I have appreciate Ezra’s writings on policy. He you can’t accuse him of making any bad faith arguments. Yesterday’s healthcare is quintessential Klein and should be cited as one of the best pieces written on the current healthcare reforms being looked at in DC.
pharniel
obscure reference is obscure
but yha, ezra was what my wife read in order to get cuaght up on the health care thing.
Davis X. Machina
Ezra’s got to watch out for the journalistic equivalence of regulatory capture, though.
Oh, and when the Rude Pundit gets a job with the Post, then we’ll be making real progress.
geg6
Hell, when Ezra was a zygote he was smarter than Broder on his best day. As for Ezra’s writing, I first started reading him back when he was at digby’s place. Ezra singlehandedly brought me to a pretty damn good understanding of the complex issues of health care and health care reform. I was always for it in the abstract typical liberal way, but my mother’s battle with breast cancer and my sister’s lifelong battle with Crohn’s Disease with the attendant health insurance bullshit led me to seek more information. And Ezra was the first I found that made it easily to grasp. He is wise beyond his years. Too bad he went big time just as his new employer was revealed as a gigantic whore spreading her legs for those who want to influence this very debate. Plus, he’s quite easy on the eyes. I don’t understand why he’s not on my teevee regularly.
demkat620
And he’s easy on the eyes.
Ezra’s the smart hottie. I forget what it’s called.
geg6
demkat620: Ha! Great minds and all that! Yes, Ezra. Yummy.
Crashman06
Ezra has had a few wingnuts drop in on his chats lately and rant and rave about s-oc-ial-ism and so forth, and he’s done a pretty good job of righteously slapping them down. There was one guy who was claiming he’d go Galt and renounce his American citizenship, and transfer all his accounts overseas, so the government couldn’t use his tax revenue to subsidize freeloaders. Ezra’s response was:
MikeJ
A good choice. From Ezra, chapter 4:
Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans
geg6
Fucking Baucus is selling out to the GOP and the health insurance industry. We will all be fucked worse than we are now with that piece of shit he’s planning on sending out. Fucker. I hate him with the heat of. Thousand suns.
geg6
Um…that was supposed to be “a thousand suns.”
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
My favorite talking point of the anti-healthcare-reform wingtards is: “Do you want some Gummint Buryocrat™ making health decisions for you?”
Well, if my choice is between some government employee who gets paid the same whether I live or die and some insurance company functionary who gets a bigger bonus the more claims he disallows, I think I’ll go with the government, thank you very much.
Do they even listen to themselves?
General Winfield Stuck
Herein lies the problem, or failure of leaving health care to the market. It has been swallowed whole by supply/demand mechanisms we call free market. The trouble is that most people can decide to just not eat fruit, or eat a little of it and life goes on. They may get Scurvy if taken to the extreme, but it never is in this country.
Not so with health care, where getting none when you need it often makes you die, and a little usually means only marginally better results. And when it runs square into a country who cares about moral hazard, healthcare gets dispensed when it is most expensive on an emergency basis and since there is no system for paying for it at this stage, it comes out of the nations general funds.
With all the CBO nonsense on scoring plans that cover everyone, or almost everyone, it is hard to calculate the savings other than with common sense. And without a tool with teeth to tame the greed that comes from an industry that provides a service that can’t be refused, on pain of death to the customer, a healthcare bill without a public option to drive down costs will make moot even covering everyone. Reality of today’s refusal to provide this tool, will mean a glide slope to collapse in a few years, of not only the HC system, but Medicare, other entitlements, and likely the economy as a whole. A lot a stake.
MikeJ
I always use this argument for marriage equality. Do you want some gubment burycrat saying who you can and can’t marry?
maye
Ezra has a gift for making policy understandable to the lay reader. And he’s only a baby! He is wicked smart.
Re Baucus and his crappy bill. JUST GET IT OUT OF COMMITTEE, so the process can proceed.
Jon H
Klein’s response on that Charlottesville question is actually pretty bad.
It is, in fact, sometimes the case that a doctor who knows a patient is in financial straits will undercharge them, or otherwise do things they don’t have to do to help the patient get the care they need. (For instance, sending a patient home with a bag full of “free sample” packs of medication, so the patient doesn’t have to buy it.)
But it’s not something you’d want to bet your family’s meals on, nor is it evidence that the system works, nor is it an argument against a better healthcare system.
While Ezra’s right that uninsured people get gouged for healthcare, especially at hospitals, he dropped the ball on this question.
The Other Steve
He’ll never last. He has to post irresponsible stupid things that get page count.
DougJ
It is, in fact, sometimes the case that a doctor who knows a patient is in financial straits will undercharge them, or otherwise do things they don’t have to do to help the patient get the care they need.
Evidence? Not of the “my dad was a doctor and he did that all the time” variety?
Ann B. Nonymous
Didn’t Marty Peretz call him part of the Juicebox Mafia once? Because he’s so young, he drinks juice out of boxes. Then he blowtorches Brick Oven Bill’s unit off. Sunny delight.
Klein is smart and sharp and he puts words together well enough to satisfy those people who judge intelligence by how well words are put together (i.e. infantilized debate team judges like Andrew Sullivan). Also, the subject seems to suit him. Does he come from a medical family?
Comrade Jake
I still contend that the best part of these from Ezra is the following:
Next time you encounter a skeptic on health reform, feed them that last line. It distills the biggest problem into a single sentence anyone (well, excepting Sean Hannity) can comprehend.
The next-to-last samurai
In my experience, and that of most other Type II diabetics I know, high fructose corn syrup, or, rather, its ubiquitousness, is heavily implicated in the Type II epidemic. True medical reform may well require a crackdown on corporate food control. After several years of experimentation, I have found that the best way to control my blood sugar is to eat only very small amounts. When I run out of stored fat, Phase 2 of the experiment will commence.
maye
and he went to University High School in Irvine, CA – probably the highest median SAT scores in the world. I had a babysitter who transfered out of Uni to a Catholic school because she couldn’t stomach the cut throat academic competition.
DougJ
He has to post irresponsible stupid things that get page count.
Then click through.
BTW, the Clintoncare piece is the second must viewed article today.
Comrade Jake
@Jon H:
I couldn’t disagree more strongly. Klein is addressing the misconception that, on average, doctors charge poor patients less. Of course they do this from time to time, but what Ezra is conveying is that what applies to the vast majority of poor people is just the opposite.
In the health care debate, certainly anecdotes matter in getting people to your side. But on the policy level, what matters is the large scale statistics.
Ailuridae
@maye:
That’s pretty much my take on the finance bill too. Get it out of committee so the HELP bill can be voted on and the details can be fixed in conference.
Ezra is very, very good. I think it’ll be sometime before anyone tries to put a serious show about policy on the air, however and thats where he would really excel.
Comrade Jake
There’s some story out there about Paul Krugman meeting Klein and being very impressed by Ezra’s intellect. You know, as opposed to the other way around.
lamh31
OT, but Why Hasn’t MSNBC Given Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show Yet?
Martin
This was a good move for Ezra as health care is really his area and WaPo gives him the soap box he needed to reach people.
3 years ago, nobody gave a shit about health care, so I’m not sure that would have been such a good match, but good on him for taking advantage of the moment.
Yeah, I can’t think of any instances of that from him. He’s very thoughtful and very measured and very willing to say ‘Wait a sec, I oversimplified that yesterday and got schooled today, here’s how it really looks’.
mai naem
I know doctors who give their patients discounts/free meds but that’s not going to help you if you are at the ER or if you need an MRI or you need surgery. The doctor may be able to reduce their fee but they can’t do a whole lot about surgery expenses or a colonoscopy or an expensive lab test. What I don’t understand is that if you have universal healthcare don’t your related insurance costs go down. Wouldn’t auto insurance,workers comp and liability insurance rates go down?How come I never hear about that?
DougJ
OT, but Why Hasn’t MSNBC Given Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show Yet?
This isn’t the reason why, but he is a jack ass. His pimping for the Kennedy clan in the whole Caroline debacle made me lose all respect for him.
Jon H
@DougJ: “Evidence? Not of the “my dad was a doctor and he did that all the time” variety?”
I don’t have any, I just know I’ve run across the occasional mention of such things, and I’m not sure how best to google for it.
Which doesn’t really challenge my point. I’m *not* saying it’s common. Maybe one office visit in 30,000? 50,000?
It happens, occasionally, as you’d expect it to because *some* doctors are going to be so inclined that they won’t be hardasses about bill collecting, but as I said above it’s not common enough that it can be depended on by poor patients. It’s not going to happen for major surgery, or an extended hospital stay, or in-home care, but it might happen for a visit to a doctor’s office to look at an infected sore. (Then again, you do hear about major surgery being donated for, say, Iraqi kids with heart defects, or kids with major deformities.)
Apparently Nooners mentioned this kind of thing as one factor arguing against healthcare reform, which is absurd because it’s purely a matter of luck.
General Winfield Stuck
The biggest problem of overcharging uninsured patients is at hospitals, where they figure they’re not going to see a dime of patient payment anyway, so they jack up the cost for when they submit their requests for federal subsidies for indigent care.
Doctors office visits are a pittance in comparison.
Brachiator
And on the other side, you have the co-opted media (and not surprisingly, Republicans) referring to the “valuable input” that stakeholders are contributing as Congress deals with health care legislation.
Stakeholders. These bastards can’t just say lobbyists, insurance companies and other special interest groups. Funny how easily they slide into the idea that the Congress isn’t working for the people, but for the corporate interest.
NPR had a little fun with the slimy special interest weasels opposing health care reform.
The link can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/
Great thread title, by the way.
Jon H
@Comrade Jake: “Of course they do this from time to time, but what Ezra is conveying is that what applies to the vast majority of poor people is just the opposite.”
Right, but it doesn’t help him that he acts like it never happens.
The question suggested that it happens “sometimes”. He should point out that it’s true, for very small values of “sometimes”, THEN go on to the larger point.
As it is, anyone reading that, who has gotten a fee cut by a doctor, or knows someone who did, is going to call bullshit on Ezra’s answer that “the opposite is true”.
I’m not even sure what “the opposite” of the question would be. That discounts happen MOST of the time?
Ezra fluffed it, in his eagerness to get to the insurance point.
Molly
@Jon H: “It happens, occasionally, as you’d expect it to because some doctors are going to be so inclined that they won’t be hardasses about bill collecting, but as I said above it’s not common enough that it can be depended on by poor patients.”
The thing is, those people have to get to the doctor in the first place in order to get those free samples. Or reduced fees. Unless it’s someone they have some kind of connection to, they just won’t go.
I have great insurance. Most of the people around me have great insurance. They also have a lot of free samples their doctors give them. There’s been times I needed antibiotics and never had to buy them because my doc just gave them to me for free. She had them around.
I work with the Hispanic community here. Most are child-care or domestic workers. They do not have insurance, even though they are legally able to work in the United States. They know through word of mouth who the doctors are that will help them if they get sick. God bless those doctors. They do whatever they can. But the fact is, I get a heck of a lot more free drugs than those people do.
We need to fix this.
lamh31
@ DougJ,
That may be so, but O’Donnell was THE ONLY ONE willing to call out Pat Buchanan to his face on MSNBC before the Sotomayor dust-up on Rachel (BTW, I understand Pat Buchanan was back on Hardball today) and one of the first on MSNBC to call Liz Cheney’s lies what they were…LIES. Also, he is one of the ONLY white libs on MSNBC willing to say that Obama was right, and what Crowley did was “stupid”, and pretty much illegal to boot.
For that, he gets a thumbs up for me.
Besides, seems to me we all see the whole Caroline Kennedy debacle differently based on which side we fell on, so I ain’t gonna knock him for that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
A doctor might waive a patient’s co-pay, but under our current forms of socialized healthcare, the government will kick a doctor’s ass if he does this too much. I doubt private payers like this either, for the same reasons.
Figuring out how co-pay waivers would or could screw up support for healthcare reform must require an understanding of Nooner’s mind. Do. Not. Want.
And yes, you win the internons for the post title.
Jon H
@Molly: “The thing is, those people have to get to the doctor in the first place in order to get those free samples. Or reduced fees. Unless it’s someone they have some kind of connection to, they just won’t go.”
Yeah, I’m NOT arguing that it’s a common thing or sufficient in lieu of a revamped healthcare system. NOT.
I’m just saying that Klein could have answered the question better.
steve s
I vaguely remember a band that was better than Ezra.
…can’t seem to remember their name….
Comrade Jake
@Jon H:
I think you’re picking it apart a bit too much. Sure, he could have improved the response a bit. But fluffed it? Hardly.
Comrade Jake
BTE is actually a great band that is touring this summer and fall.
DougJ
BTE is actually a great band that is touring this summer and fall.
Their big hit song was a good song, IMHO.
Evinfuilt
I got free meds from one of my doctors while i was out of work, in bankruptcy and of course, sick. Mind you if I had proper healthcare not tied to a job it wouldn’t have mattered (and that I had to spend $100 to see the doctor for the free meds.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
@DougJ: Gah!
jcricket
On this topic I read an infuriating article today in Fortune (online) about how we’ll lose “5 freedoms” if healthcare reform passes. The whole thing is crap, from top to bottom. Unadulterated Randian Libertarian fantasy land BS. Everything in the article is a complete lie. The “freedoms” he lists are really “freedom for the insurance company to rob you blind” that are only controlled/eliminated if proper regulations are put in place/enforced. And his so-called solution is more free-market individual plan “take care of your own health” hand-waving crap.
Yet the editor of a major, widely read business journal is convinced he is right (or just shilling for the insurance industry, doesn’t matter) and tens of thousands of people are listening to his bullshit.
I simply can’t take it. In a sane world the debate would be like it is in Taiwan, where people debate what level of reimbursement and taxation is proper, who should pay the taxes, and various details about what should be covered – but not whether a single-payer system will lead to communism or how the free market will cure everyone’s ills. Our whole debate system sucks, suck suck sucks sucks.
arguingwithsignposts
Only slightly OT, but I would note that Tweety covered both the Birthers and Gates-gate on his show tonight. Keep those hits coming, Tweetster, while our last true chance at real health insurance reform gets hosed by Baucus’ Idiot Caucus.
lamh31
Love BTE from my hometown N’awlins (not just the home of Lil Wayne).
They had hometown advantage I’m not usually into Rock bands (I’m more of an R&B type of girl), but I currently have 2 of their songs on my IPOD:
Good
Desperately Wanting
dmsilev
Completely OT: Apparently Jon Stewart has Bill “wrong about everything” Kristol as a guest tonight. Could be the mother of all trainwrecks.
-dms
Comrade Jake
@DougJ:
They’re pretty much an underrated band that puts on a great live show. If you liked that song you should check them out.
Comrade Jake
Stewart is on fire right now.
PeakVT
RE: Baucus and his committee’s bill – I’m fairly certain whatever they produce will be gutted on the floor. Sanders and a few others will revolt once they see the product, and the reform effort will have to be done via reconciliation.
This has been my positive political though of the day.
arguingwithsignposts
@Comrade Jake: can’t wait to see it on hulu in the morning.
And WTF is Pat Buchanan STILL doing on MSNBC. And Nora O’Donnell – Palin Shill or Shiller for Palin?
arguingwithsignposts
Oh, and apparently the house passed the Hawaii/Obama resolution with no no votes.
Comrade Jake
@arguingwithsignposts:
Somewhere Orly Taitz’s head is exploding.
Martin
No it doesn’t. Seriously, I know their SAT scores better than the administrators there do. They have strong test scores but there are stronger schools in CA, not to mention the rest of the country. Mostly it’s a school full of kids with overbearing, panicked parents (a lot of university professors, obviously) worried that their kids will grow up to be waiters because they got a 2200 on the SAT and 4’s on some of their AP tests.
Good testers, but generally not good thinkers out of Uni, in my experience. (There’s a reason UC is dumping the SATs, you know.) But independent, motivated students can do very well there if they manage to duck all the crazy.
AhabTRuler
I still bear the scars…(weeps)!
Martin
Yes, Remote Area Medical proves that medical care in the US is usually free of charge and open to anyone. Obama is ruining a good thing by demanding that everyone pay.
Obama needs to invent a Twilight Zone machine that puts pundits into a scenario that most graphically disproves their assertions. I want to see Peggy Noonan in an animal stall having a tooth extracted because there isn’t enough time for a dentist to give her a root canal before the fair ends. Let her then declare how good our health care system is.
Nylund
Klein is young, but impressive, especially on health care.
Broder’s ideal is:
democtrats cave to the GOP, the GOP insists on the Dems incorporating their bad ideas. Dems agree. Dems vote for it, and the GOP votes against their own ideas.
Broder calls it bipartisanship and celebrates. Never once does he learn anything about the subject or weigh the relative merits of each side’s arguments.
Broder is has done nothing but hurt America and I have no feelings of well-being towards him at all. He controls way too much of the public discourse and he deserves the worst possible of existences for hoe irresponsibly he has taken that role.
Montysano
Why does Bill Kristol go on The Daily Show? John Stewart just smacked him around like a punk.
Davis X. Machina
Klein is young, but impressive, especially on health care.
He spells better than Yglesias, too.
jl
@Nylund: Broder is a prissy, hysterical old geezer. I do not understand that type of person, and have given up. If I turn into one, I hope my friends show me grandmotherly kindness, and send me into the wilderness with some restful sleepy time drugs, and tell me it is best if I do not come back.
But of course, I wish Mr Broder a very long and happy life for his sake, since he is a prissy and hysterical old geezer who will get the vapors at more things than I can imagine. I am just talking about me.
arguingwithsignposts
@Montysano:
the same reason tucker carlson invited Jon Stewart on “Crossfire.” Stewart can be a puppy dog in interviews with people, including John McCain. But he also dissects the Cramers of the world. Kristol probably thought he’d get the former (as he sorta did on his appearance on the Colbert Report), but got stuck with the latter.
And for that I’m eternally grateful to Mr. Stewart. Wingnut welfare William shouldn’t be allowed to have a letter to the editor printed in the Washington Post, but they gave him a column after he flamed out at NYT. {shakes head}
I’ve often thought about trying to get an op-ed published in WaPo (one of those guest column thingies like Sarah Palin got to have published) with the headline “What the Fuck is Wrong With You People?” that would take apart the village systematically over about 1,500 words.
Never happen.
KG
@63: the SAT goes to 2200 now? What happened to 1600 being a perfect score?
I’m passingly familiar with University High, having grown up in Orange County. I didn’t know it had a reputation of being a great school, but then private and public, there are quite a few good schools in Orange County – at least there were 10-15 years ago when I was in high school.
jl
I just changed my mind. If I show signs of turning into Broder, I hope my friends show grandmotherly kindness and score me lots of dope, hoping that it will snap me out of the Broderism. Scratch that being sent into the wilderness stuff, I don’t know where that came from. I was just flying by the seat of my pants, there.
But, if Broder is reading, something to consider…
Yep, thats’ better, could be a win-win-win for all of us.
merrinc
Jason Bylinowski
@Molly: “I have great insurance. Most of the people around me have great insurance. They also have a lot of free samples their doctors give them.”
Yes, this. I remember, in the days of yore when I had insurance – my family and I have all been without any kind of useful insurance for over six years now and we’re getting more nervous about it everyday – it was almost a given that anytime we went to see our primary care physician, we’d walk out of there with scads of free stuff, some of which we didn’t even necessarily need. Like, I’d get stuff for those allergies that were sure to start up again. It was freaking awesome. Now I’ll probably have a crisis of conscience if my next family doctor does that, that is IF I ever get covered again before I croak.
As I’ve said before, Hell is a small paycheck.
arguingwithsignposts
@merrinc:
That’s not just for lack of insurance. Dentists in general gouge everyone – even people with insurance. I cannot for the life of me understand how dental and eye care are not a part of health insurance.
jl
Doctors might cut an uninsured person some slack, depending on their ethics. I think contemporary medical ethics play a role, which tend towards duty to increase human welfare, and imbues the doctor-patient welfare with some obligations to follow-through once a relationship is established.
But… hospitals and outpatient clinics (where there is no personal relationship) will ream you, brothers and sisters, like you never have been reamed before. No discounts for nothing, you will get the highest list prices they have for every little thing, no mercy on mystery-meat bills, every fricken plastic bag and tongue depressor that spend a second in your room will be billed at war-profiteer rates. Only question is whether they think it will be worth it to sic the bill collectors on you, and totally wreck you, financially.
Davis X. Machina
…the SAT goes to 2200 now?
2400 actually. There are now 3 tests, reading, an essay, and math. The old 1600-scale is still widely referred to — just leave out the essay.
burnspbesq
@maye:
Uni’s a great school by SoCal standards. But it can’t hold a candle to places like Ridgewood and New Trier and Langley. It just doesn’t have the resources.
Martin
Goes to 2400 now. There are 3 tests scored on a 800 scale. The 3rd test is writing – multiple choice and essay. When the UC first threatened to dump the SATs, the ETS agreed to add writing to try and balance out the test. Turns out UC still doesn’t want the test – it correlates far better to income than to college performance.
That’s why Uni tests well – it’s an entire high school full of parents willing to send their kids to Kaplan and Princeton Review every summer.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: I dunno. My dentist plans my treatments out for a year, so as to always minimize my out-of-pocket. And am I loyal to that guy. But then I am insured, and may be other commenters do not have dental policy.
Scott
@geg6:
Understandable in the heat of the moment…
S
Montysano
@arguingwithsignposts: For bonus fun, check out Bill Maher on Blitzer!® today. Bill lights up CNN’s mail servers by saying that we’re a “stupid country”, then declines Blitzer!®’s offer to walk it back; instead, he lays out his reasoning.
Jeezus; when a couple of comedians are the only ones speaking the truth, what hope is there?
Keith G
@jl:
Many months ago, I saw him on Washington Week. It was clear to me that he was having trouble. His motions were shakey. Ifill had to clarify and refocus a few of his statements. At the end as the others said “thank you”, or whatever, with a smile, Broder just leaned back in his chair, defeated by the effort.
He is not well.
Martin
Depends on what you’re looking for. It’s definitely a good school for competing in college admissions, but I’ve never met more well off, but fucked up kids and parents. They all need to calm the fuck down, enjoy life a bit, and not stress over every last thing.
KG
I remember those kinds of kids in high school. I always felt sorry for them. My folks were always willing to support me on stuff, but never pressured me – I think I might have done some prep course, for the PSAT of all damned things, and didn’t pay attention. Never really prepped for the SAT and I scored somewhere in the mid-1200. Did the same thing on the LSAT and scored in the mid-150s. But those kids that killed themselves, I always thought, “that’s got to suck ass,” usually as I was on my way to the beach.
Edit: or what Martin said @84
arguingwithsignposts
@jl: I have a dentist who plans out the treatments the same way, but when you look at the prices for each bit of treatment (not to mention orthodontia, which I thankfully haven’t had), the prices are ridiculous. I have insurance, but it only covers $2,000 in a year. That may sound like a lot, but if you have any significant work done (like a root canal or a bridge), that will get eaten up quickly (and then there’s the ever expanding co-pays).
Regardless, I still maintain dental insurance should be included in the entire “health” insurance scheme (ditto eyeglasses, etc.)
burnspbesq
@Martin:
You just also described CdM, Sunny Hills, Troy, Newport Harbor, Laguna, Valencia, and LosAl. The best-adjusted kids in the county are probably at OCHSA; they’re all artsy weirdos who don’t give a shit what anybody thinks about them, and most of them are really smart.
KG
@ 87: hey, don’t forget my alma mater: Esperanza. Actually, on second thought, don’t lump us in with any of those schools.
jl
@Keith G: Sorry to hear that. If his health is failing, I shouldn’t have joked about Broder like I did.
I saw an interview he did recently and he seemed very chipper and healthy. But I was alarmed by his psychological state. It was an interview about journalism, and it was evident that he took his informal Distinguished Dean of something or other title very very seriously.
Talk about pompous, I have no words for it. At the end I did not know whether I felt outraged or sorry for him. And I am not joking.
burnspbesq
@KG:
Esperanza is probably going to become a much better school over the next couple of years, simply because enrollment is going to shrink by a third when the new high school in Yorba Linda opens this fall.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m lucky with dentists, I guess. I never pay much at all, and have even threw a root canal and a crown (Delta). But I do go for the cheapie gold ones.
arguingwithsignposts
@jl:
to be fair, as I said, my dentist is really accommodating. But the prices still seem high. and i do have insurance, for which I’m extremely thankful. I do remember going in for a root canal and during the procedure it started getting really painful and the dentist asked if I wanted nitrous. i asked how much it would cost, and the dentist said $75/half-hour and insurance wouldn’t cover it, and I said I’ll take the pain.
Scott
“…that doctors sometimes undercharge patients who are strapped financially. Is there any evidence out there supporting or debunking this?”
Ummm, no!. A few years ago my son had a jet ski accident on the lake when he hit a dead head ( semi submerged log) and wound up in the ER. Sliced open scalp, concussion… No insurance. Not only did he pay top ER fees the attending doctor nailed him for $700 even though he did nothing; the nurses and interns did the sutures. Every attempt to negotiate with the hospital/doctor resulted in threats of a collection agency. Later I was able to compare his charges with those of my own ER bill; and ultimately paid by my insurance. Not only were his initial charges higher than mine but after the hospitalization plan applied their U&C algorithm the resulting charges were HALF what he was charged. No, doctors in WNY don’t cut anybody any slack.
It is this and similar experiences that make me wonder why reform isn’t focused on why it costs so much just to deliver the services; why a simple bandage is $20.00; an aspirin $6.00; a paper sleeve for a portable heart monitor is $23.00….
I have Insurance; I worry about how much longer…..
Cheers,
S
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that we’re talking SoCal high school “my junk is bigger than yours” and dentistry in the bottom of a thread about health care?
ah, the BJ community!
KG
@90: it was a good school while I was there (even as the population was exploding), a ton of great teachers, a student body that wasn’t out of its mind (even though the vast majority went on to college, either of the two or four year variety).
Hell, last year it ranked 860 on MSNBC/Newsweek’s Top 1300 High Schools this year (not too bad considering it’s got a population of a small liberal arts university).
Martin
I’ve had better luck with some of them. CdM and Harbor are pretty bad, but don’t have the ‘Dad has a PhD’ vibe to it. More money, but less pressure to stack up. Laguna, Valencia, and LosAl have been better, but maybe we’ve just been lucky there. To be honest, Uni seems the worst probably because I’m too familiar with the place.
I have to agree about OCHSA. If my son maintains his current trajectory, maybe he’ll find himself there, but we’re avoiding Uni at all costs.
Bender
Yeah, when he comes straight out and says that he thinks the Democrats need to somehow trick people into voting for a reform which would morph into single-payer (without telling the electorate this, because they’d vote against it, as people tend to like their personal plans), it’s hard to accuse a guy of bad-faith.
I mean, he’s telling you straight out that he’ll lie to voters to get what he wants.
So why would I believe a word of what he says about health care, unless I am a huge sucker? If someone tells me that he’ll lie, that person is disqualified from dispensing his opinion. Because his opinion is likely a lie.
He also says he’s love to “snap his fingers” and put all the insurance companies and all their employees out of work. Wonder if he mentioned that in his chat.
arguingwithsignposts
@Scott:
i’m amazed at how much insurance companies can shave off the bill. for instance, a major surgery for a loved one that cost $10,000 according to the hospital. We were billed $2,000, insurance billed $8,000 (80/20 split). Final bill showed that the insurance co. paid $4,000, basically shaving off half their bill, while we were still responsible for the whole $2,000 (those aren’t actual numbers, but reflect the basic percentages of the bill, and it’s not the only instance of this I’ve seen).
The hospital didn’t go after the ins. co. for the other $4,000, but I’ll guarantee that if I’d said “I’ll only pay half what you billed,” I’d have been taken to court. it’s a tragedy what goes on in the name of “health care” in our country.
asiangrrlMN
Jon Stewart has had Kristol on several times. I think he (Stewart) actually likes him (Kristol). I haven’t been able to stomach watching any of the earlier episodes, but if you PROMISE me the smackdown is epic, I will gut this one out.
Ezra Klein is seriously impressive. He is methodical, thoughtful, lucid, and highly readable. We need more pundits like him and less like, well, Kristol.
Lawrence O’Donnell is yummy. I would watch him do his own show. That is all.
KG
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “electoral politics.” For other examples see: “torture, we do not”; “Social Security, reform”; “taxes, cutting, increase in revenue”
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: A freaky, maybe bad, or maybe good thing about my dentist is that he does not use pain killers nearly as much as any other dentist I have ever had. I’d say about a third of the time he says that he can do it without anesthesia, so I can forego it if I want. He says a lot of dentists numb people up when they don’t need to , but if the work is done carefully, it isn’t really needed.
I was freaked out at first, but i suddenly felt it would be all sissy if I said ‘oooohhh noooh, you gotta drruuuuug meeeee!’. I got used to it. He gives me a sign if I feel any pain, but I’ve never needed to use it, when he does procedures without anesthesia.
Sometimes I think I made a mistake by agreeing. I was thinking that the last time I was there -I mean, how do I cage a high out of dental visit anymore? Any suggestions, people?
Jon H
@arguingwithsignposts: ” Dentists in general gouge everyone – even people with insurance. ”
There was a Scientologist dentist on my block in Chicago.
I think that really says it all. I hope he or she didn’t get people to sign up while they were drugged.
arguingwithsignposts
@asiangrrlMN:
I stand somewhat corrected in that Stewart has had Bill Kristol on several times. Kristol is still a douchebag. I don’t know why Stewart would like him, other than (as many Washington pundits) he might be a lot nicer in person when he’s not being paid to be a dick.
Jon H
So the thread consensus: Ezra Klein: hard to fathom but wonderful to be with.
Amirite?
Fulcanelli
@Bender: “He also says he’s love to “snap his fingers” and put all the insurance companies and all their employees out of work.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Everybody who’s been fucked by an insurance company of some kind (health, auto, homeowners, etc.) after faithfully paying their premiums for years say “aye”
Aye.
KG
@ 98: part of the problem is, when you go to the hospital, you are not considered a potential return customer; the insurance company is going to come back. It’s like going to a bar, if you stop at a place while driving through, you can figure you’re going to pay whatever the bartender says the price is; if you are a regular at a bar, there’s a pretty decent chance that you’ll get a drink or two for free.
jl
@Jon H: Scientologist Dentist? OK that does it, I am sticking with mine forever.
arguingwithsignposts
@jl:
My dentist actually had to give me like seven shots into my gums the last time I was in to numb me for a root canal (hence the suggestion of nitrous). But I could never have done a root canal without some kind of anesthetic. When I had a bridge many years ago, the dentist believed in knocking the patient out totally. That was a wild experience.
I stuck it out through the pushing and pulling, but the outright pain I couldn’t take.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: Well, for the first half of my root canal, my dentist did drug me up quite mightily. I will admit that much without feeling like a sissy.
arguingwithsignposts
@KG:
That makes sense. However, the cost of the procedure is – theoretically, at least – the same, no matter who is getting it done. I’m not so inclined to think it’s such a kindness on the part of health care organizations (they are just as much money-grubbing squid as the health insurance cos. in many instances). Instead, it’s a “take it or leave it” kind of approach on the part of health ins. cos. And since it’s their part of the bill, the hospital has no choice but to suck it up.
I’ve also had a couple of drs. try to collect from me for the portion that the health ins. co. stiffed them on. that’s another real sucker on health insurance.
personally, i’d prefer single payer gov’t provided health insurance and I can go to whatever dr. I want and know what the payment system is, and not lose my ins. if I lose my job, and not worry about pre-existing conditions, etc.
yeah, call me an idealist – or a so-cia-list – or a european, whatever. I’m tired of the crappy system we have.
Martin
By any chance, does he ride a motorcycle and have a girlfriend named Audrey?
dirge
My experience, during my uninsured period, was that clinics were often thrilled at the prospect of a patient showing up and saying, “no insurance, plenty of cash.” My impression was that collecting from insurance agencies what such a pain that cash on the barrelhead would make them happy to go the extra mile. Free wrist brace, a few other things.
Good thing I never needed help that would’ve cost real money, but for the little stuff it seems like cash is king. I think most clinics could turn a tidy profit if they were paid on reasonable terms, but most of the time they’re lucky to be paid at all.
So if you hear stories about the uninsured being offered discounts, I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re talking about. It’s the discount you get for paying cash upon receipt rather than the vague promise that some insurance company may, just maybe, if you hassle them enough, eventually cough up half the bill.
Martin
How many people has an insurance actuary ever healed? See, the insurance folks aren’t actually *in* the health industry, but they are soaking up consumers health dollars.
The wingnuts, for whatever reason, think this is a good thing. The only reason I can think of is that they’re just afraid of any kind of change – anything. Just a bunch of fucking cowards.
Martin
Depends on how you look at it. Those individuals that get treatment but can’t pay or go bankrupt before they can – all of those uninsured that we’re now trying to put in a position to contribute to the system, the cost of their procedures are getting attached to all of our procedures. So the $2000 bill is closer to $1500 with $500 to cover someone else. The insurance companies typically negotiate that $500 away, but you and I can’t.
The total outlay for health care really can’t go up. Everyone *is* getting paid, but not necessarily by the right people. That’s what we need to fix.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bender:
It will move health care coverage in the direction of single payer, but that’s different than a mandated requirement for single payer. There will still be private plans that rich people will want and will be provided by private insurance.
And you’re wrong that people would vote against it. It isn’t really an ideological choice anymore. the juggernaut of greed and all the unnecessary fingers in the health care pie have to go. If they don’t, people will be paying so much for health insurance they won’t have money to buy other things that are less necessary, and the economy will collapse. This is what you idiots are really arguing for, and most average Americans can see the writing on the wall. There are only two alternatives to take the leap of bending the inflationary curve downward, or see the entire ship sink under the weight of 3 times normal inflation to wage increases. The only way to do this is with direct government price controlling, or interjecting sanity and some competition that isn’t all about more and more profit. Price controls never work, so we’re left with a public option.
SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta
@arguingwithsignposts: I had the same thought. Didn’t see anything about it on Countdown either. Rachel had a segment on health care reform, with Howard Dean, who I think is going to guest host the show tomorrow. Unbelieveable.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: I disagree for hospitals and clinics. Price discrimination is rampant. They quote list prices that can be almost double the average reimbursement. Discounts given to volume customers, such as an HMO sending patients to a hospital, are almost never public information.
That is the problem with getting rid of employer based (group) policies and moving to self-financed health savings accounts, and many kinds of high deductible catastrophic individual policies. Individuals will be expected to bargain, often when in urgent need of care, starting from the list price, and have very little bargaining power.
The GOP approach of letting the market work through individual policies would be a gold mine for providers and insurers. I am willing to bet that two part pricing structure will emerge. One will be very high list prices for charges up to deductible, with additional charges above deductible being more like the current discounts that large insurers and HMOs get, since large organizations with bargaining power will be paying that part of the bill.
That is excepting the rather small percentage of staff HMOs that own all of their hospitals and clinics.
KG
@110: it’s not out of the kindness of anyone’s heart (in fact, I recall a commenter or two around here talking about working collections for hospitals against insurance companies and them fighting like hell to get paid – I’ve also seen this on the legal side in my salad days doing personal injury cases), it’s a matter of making it up in volume. The insurance company has leverage to negotiate because of its sheer size – they are negotiating 10,000 identical procedures, while you’re negotiating 1.
jody
I also enjoy how the public plan would primarily cover those not eligible for insurance any other way.
You know, the folks the insurance companies don’t want.
Yet for some reason we shouldn’t be trying to cover them.
It’s as if the GOP and Blue Dogs are more about protecting the interests of the insurance companies than seeing that everyone gets health care.
Also, socialism.
gwangung
Repeat. Again and again and again to free market dunces.
Yeah, the free market does wonders when everybody has equal access and equal opportunities—but that’s not the case much of the time in health care. Insurance companies and hospitals have the law of large numbers on their side—and they are not always on the side of the patient.
arguingwithsignposts
@KG: @jl:
As someone whose mom worked for a hospital in critical care for 30 years, I am well aware of the fact that none of this is out of the kindness of anyone’s heart.
But the actual “volume discounts” are readily available if you examine your hospital bills/insurance statements carefully. That’s how I discovered the 50 percent discount on the procedure I spoke of earlier. The very fact that we’re discussing “volume discounts” in terms of saving people’s lives is obscene, imho. And, as I said, it’s not “volume discounts,” but more like “take it or leave it” much the same as wal-mart negotiates “volume discounts” with their suppliers.
And again, the “price” of the procedure doesn’t go down because of who the individual is. It’s just shifting money around.
The health insurance industry is a pox on the american way of life, pure and simple. They weren’t always this way. Somewhere, we lost our soul as a nation. or at least the health insurance industry and our elected “representatives” (cf Baucus and his ilk) did.
KG
ok, so I apparently forgot html, never mind, no real point to this comment anyway.
jl
@arguingwithsignposts: Not sure I understand your point. Seems to me from your previous comment that your insurer perhaps got a discount from the charge stated in the bill, but you didn’t. But that is what I said happens.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Martin: As a former student in a Uni-like overperforming high school and a UC university student who has taught UC students, I don’t really agree on the SAT bashing.
On the low end of the scale, the test really does correlate pretty well with college performance–people that get v. low scores generally do less well in college, and it’s good for segregating out students who will do poorly in college. It’s just that, on the higher end of the scale, better SAT performance doesn’t necessarily mean better performance in college. Going off of the old (out of 1600) scale there wasn’t much difference between students scoring 1300-1600, but there was a huge difference between them and students scoring less than 1100. A lot of people bring up the fact that ESL students can score low on the exam despite understanding the material well–but their language deficiencies are nonetheless often a barrier to college performance.
arguingwithsignposts
@jl:
I see that there is some confusion. To be clear, the hospital “billed” the insurance co. for the full amount, but the ins. co. “paid” half of what was on the “bill.” In other words, I saw the price cut happen right before my eyes (I won’t name names, but their name rhymes with BYGLA).
Now, it’s one thing to say you’re going to offer a volume discount (again, something I would argue is obscene in terms of health care), but it’s quite another to arbitrarily reduce the bill to the amount you are willing to pay and tell the hospital to suck it.
My real question is: if the procedure didn’t “cost” you $10,000, why did you bill $10,000 in the first place. Because you were price gouging? Because you’re pulling numbers out of your ass? Or because you were hoping to game the system and get the ins. co. to cough up more than the $4,000 they were willing to pay?
On the ins. co. side, why even pretend that the procedure “costs” $4,000 more than you’re willing to pay.
Health care isn’t and never has been a truly “free” market. It’s a market in which people often have to take what they can get because their lives are in danger. At least, that’s the way it is in the U.S.
I do agree that price discrimination is rampant. All these costs are getting shifted to someone.
Martin
Do you have any idea how few students the UCs bring in that are under 1100? And the ones that we do bring in are typically ‘A’ students (which is why we bring them in). Now, we can say that the ‘A’ students shouldn’t be coming, but that’s really not an option for a state university.
But if you dip down one layer further – where I can see but you can’t – you’ll find that those 1100 students usually come from low-performance or low-income school districts, or are low-income themselves. They generally didn’t have the benefits of AP calculus or Kaplan or private tutors, yet UC is chartered to serve the population of the state, not just the well-off population of the state. We can afford to take some less-well prepared but motivated students and get them up to speed. We’re educators. That’s our job.
And the small correlation to performance in college (it’s no more than about 10%) vanishes after the first year. Now, I don’t dispute that a 1600 student will likely walk out with a better GPA than an 1100 student, but my primary goal (and the UC’s primary goal) is to ensure that both the 1100 and 1600 student graduate with the degree they want. The SATs really aren’t playing much of a role in that. Mostly we need to make sure that the 1100 student has the motivation to keep close enough to the 1600 student to not wash out of the program, and the HS grades are the best predictor of that. But once you shift the focus to grades, then it really doesn’t matter that much what their SATs were – so why run everyone through the hassle?
I’ve been doing this for a long time and have doubled our retention rate during my tenure, while significantly reducing the time it takes for students to graduate. Our biggest gains by far on the admissions end came by minimizing the role of SATs.
MNPundit
The one knock on Klein was that in the aftermath of 2004 his first impulse was to blame the youth in other words, the people his own age.
Since then he’s always seemed disconnected from other millennials in his writings.
kay
The Senate compromise proposal is a disaster.
No employer mandates, no cap on out of pocket expenses, no public option, and no new taxes to pay for anything.
Not that they’ll need any new taxes to pay for anything, because there’s nothing in there.
It costs nothing, but does nothing to control costs, for business or individual.
I don’t why they bothered. It sucks even as regulation. This proposes less regulation nationally than many states already offer.
They’re actually, incredibly, “fixing” health care by creating a less regulatory national environment to benefit health insurance companies, who I guess, will then “pass the savings on to you”.
We would have done much better had they just written some proper regulation for the health insurance industry.
geg6
Martin: I, too, work for a major public university in another state and I couldn’t agree with you more. SATs are indicative of very little, at least until you get into the very low scores (below 1000-1100). High school GPA has been the more consistent predictor of success over many years. We often see very high SAT scores for students who have low GPAs, usually kids from wealthier high schools and usually those kids have either no motivation or had scores distorted by test tutoring and don’t do well. OTOH, we also see low income students with lower SAT scores and good GPAs who come and flourish academically. The SATs are a racket and don’t really measure anything (it’s supposed to measure potential–ha!). At least the ACT measures more of what they actually KNOW, and so we find it marginally is a better snapshot of a student. But only marginally. IMHO, all standardized tests are a load of crap that do nothing much but measure how much a student has eaten or slept, who has had help beyond the classroom, their economic status, who is motivated, and whose family has stressed academic achievement. It doesn’t really translate to the classroom, let alone the workforce. Witness our Wall Street masters of the universe, high SAT scores all around but the biggest bunch of incompetents that ever walked the face of the earth.
kay
I think progressives should probably give up on national health care and work at the state level.
In order to do that, they’re probably going to have to block passage of the lobbyist-written private health insurance subsidy currently taking shape in the Senate, because they’re nationalizing policy and regulation favorable to that industry.
bob h
If Ezra starts making too much sense, making fools of Broder, Will, et. al., they will asshole him out the door like Froomkin.
Montysano
@arguingwithsignposts:
In a word, yes.
I have sleep apnea. I can buy a CPAP machine identical to mine on the Web for $550.00. My insurance was billed nearly $2,000.00 for mine, and they paid in full!
I’ve worked for a small business for a long time; I understand the need for profit. The CPAP on the web is probably being sold for 10-15% margin. Our business needs 15% to survive, 25-30% to prosper. But 300% margin? It’s theft.
Bob
“…that doctors sometimes undercharge patients who are strapped financially. Is there any evidence out there supporting or debunking this? Any comments on the article overall?”
“Ezra Klein: Didn’t see her article, but it’s actually the opposite: Doctors overcharge patients who are strapped financially.”
I am with Ezra. My daughter just had surgery. The hospital billed BCBS about $8,000. BCBS, because of their “relationship” with the hospital, paid $1,000. We paid $300.
A poor person, without insurance, would have paid $8,000.
Michael
On an amusing note, vacuous twunt Mika was expounding on her outrage of the morning, that Obama opined “without having all the facts” (disclosure – I thought he’d done fine, ut I despise cops and find 98% of them to be thuggish, greedy, corrupt liars).
The irony meter pegged 11 on Mika’s concern.
Comrade Darkness
And so they end up paying a lot more.
(haven’t caught up with the other comments, just want to post this quick)
Having paid cash in various socialist medical systems, I can completely vouch for this. I’ve had surgery in NZ including anesthesia and facility fee for 1600$. I’ve paid cash for a rabies shot from my local doc for $350 whereas in one of the otherwise most expensive cities in the world, London, I paid 40 pounds retail for the same thing. And I didn’t have to custom order it, and carry it on cold water, myself, from the pharmacy to my doc.
Now, I would really much much rather land in an emergency room in the U.S. Emergency rooms in London are a running joke.
I really think though that we are smart enough to retain the good parts of our system and fix the broken parts. We have a lot of other countries to learn from and the cultural differences that might influence the outcomes are well documented.
Comrade Darkness
Very good article in the New Yorker comparing places that have better outcomes for less money to places that have terrible outcomes and spend a ton of money.
Hopefully since that post contains no words actually discussing the topic at hand, the filter won’t eat it.
fish
if Klein had had an public opinion page gig for the past 17 years and David Broder hadn’t, this country would be in a different place
This is a bit of nonsense. Kline has routinely shifted positions when the winds of conventional wisdom shifted. He is the quintessential windsockpuppet. His opinion on the Iraq war, beat sweeteners, and even healthcare, his supposed expertise, are completely reflective of beltway thinking. There is a reason he so quickly ascended to the Washington Post: Broder is near retirement.
Persia
@Fulcanelli: My parents had good health insurance. It didn’t save them from bankruptcy when Dad hit his ‘lifetime limit.’
Paul L.
DougJ is on Journolist too?
I remember a year ago Ezra was stating their would be no rationing of healthcare under a Government system.
Now he claiming that rationing is worst under a private system.
He just changes his current talking point to reflect conventional progressive wisdom.
Let’s not forget he got his start in blogging under Amynda Marcotte.
The Unbearable Lightness of Ezra Klein (and Jon Chait)
Lets not forget this classic of Ezra “logic”.
some guy
Um… Klein does, in fact, specifically identify Jill Filipovic and Ann Friedman as part of the “feminist” blogosphere.
Here’s the actual quote from the Glamor article:
That reads to me like he’s objecting the fact that feminism and serious political blogging are seen as mutually exclusive.
jcricket
I think the two points people are making are not mutually exclusive.
Some doctors, knowing someone is uninsured might simply avoid billing that person and chalk it up to “social justice”. However, if you are uninsured, and you are billed, the rates you pay for services far, far exceed the rates of the insured.
Gee, that sounds like a wonderful system – hope the doctor doesn’t bill you if you are uninsured.
I am simply amazed by the number of people who can’t see our system is fundamentally broken. I have “good” health insurance (I’m a upper-middle class white-collar professional) and I still know how much worse it’s gotten in the 15 years I’ve been in the work force. Deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums are way up, co-pays are up, waiting times and complexity of understanding coverage are up. When I have lost my job I thank god that my wife has coverage too (b/c COBRA is insane). I know that one of the reasons we would be nervous for my wife to start her own business is lack of healthcare.
And I know the facts show that every other comparable modern country has universal coverage at 1/2 or less the price we’re paying, with none of the shenanigans pulled by insurance companies. Sure, none of the systems are perfect, but they exceed ours in nearly every way that counts, including actual health care outcomes. And most of them, while still struggling with cost controls, are doing a better job than we are (or at least are better positioned to figure out how to systemically control costs).
So tell me again why having a public plan (which I wish was open to all from day 1, but I will suffice with having as an option for the uninsured for now), some reasonable regulations on the for-profit insurance industry and the very beginnings of systemic cost-control bodies (CER, MedPAC) are the doorway to the ninth circle of hell?!?!?!?
All I can conclude is that there are some people who swallowed the GOP poison pill that makes you think “government BAD, private sector GOOD, invisible hand SOLVES ALL”. Because there’s no rational way to conclude what the House has proposed will do anything but good.
I think we’ve reached far beyond the point where it’s bipartisanship we need to worry about – Democrats need to be having tons and tons of conversations with the public, explaining how warped the Republican viewpoint is, if we’re ever to get real solutions to the real problems facing society.
Glocksman
@Bob:
At the end of May I was hospitalized for almost a week with a bleeding ulcer, 3 days of which were spent in ICU.
When I finally got the bill last month, the statement said the ‘regular rate’ was over $15,000, but that the ‘contracted rate’ for the stay was a hair over $7000.
When all was said and done, My share of the bills barely hit the $500 ‘out of pocket’ maximum my insurance calls for.
If I hadn’t had insurance, I have no doubt they’d be trying to collect that full $15,000+ from me.
magisterludi
I caught a US rep- didn’t catch his name- say that people will be all be required to be insured according to their means- quality of care, of course, on a sliding scale.
I am not sure if he was talking about a Pelosi-backed plan or not. I was just astounded at his thorough endorsement of legislated inequality in America.
Bruno
Fish is right. In 5 years Ezra will be David Broder.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
[email protected]
Good testers, but generally not good thinkers out of Uni, in my experience.
Sounds like SOMEone didn’t get into Uni-iii-iiii.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
Broder = Squidward Tentacles.
Ajay
@Jon H
> I’m just saying that Klein could have answered the question better.
Absolutely not. He did exactly what should have been done: Explaining that poor/people with no insurance pay more than those who do have it. What you are whining about the exactness of insignificant. Ezra on the other hand did an excellent job for the uninformed.
On the same lines, when I discovered this first hand (different rates for uninsured), I was shocked. It defied common sense.
jl
@kay: Problem wit state level efforts is that federal law preempts state action in many cases. The main law that does this is called ERISA and places many restrictions on what states can change. For example, suing a health insurer for breaking a contract or bad faith is restricted and when it happens in most cases must be done in a federal court, and state has very little power to change this.
kay
@jl:
That’s my point. I don’t want federal regulation if it’s just going to make things worse, and the Senate bipartisan plan makes things worse.
I’m shocked by how bad it is.
It’s as if the six Senators got together and said “how can we make this look like we’re completely in the pocket of insurance companies and our corporate donors?”
It’s insulting to voters. All the requirements are on the individual health care consumer. They’re asking nothing from insurance companies, business or state or federal governments.
I mean, jesus. Enough already. Now we’re going to de-regulate private insurers in the hopes they’ll cut us a tiny reduction on premiums?
How’d that work out with the banks and mortgage lenders? How’d that work out the last fifty times we tried it?
This approach DOES NOT WORK, and they know it. We tried it. We tried it with Medicare Advantage, since 1997, so 10 years, and it’s an absolute boondoggle.
The only conclusion I can draw is that they’re once again working for their donors, not their voters.
snarkout
@Paul L.
Ignoring the fact that you’re missing the point of Ezra’s comment about “feminist bloggers”, Amanda Marcotte wasn’t an original poster at Pandagon. (It was Ezra and Jesse, IIRC.) Try again.
kay
@jl:
I would really, really enjoy cutting off the Senators Congressional health care coverage. Send them a certified letter and just cancel it.
They can bring their letters to their next secret meeting, and compare health care war stories, like the rest of the country does.