The NY Times reports:
President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of airing “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal anti-trust laws.
In unusually harsh terms, Mr. Obama cast insurance companies as obstacles to change interested only in preserving their own “profits and bonuses” and willing to “bend the truth or break it” to stop his drive to remake the nation’s health care system. The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to push back against industry assertions that legislation will drive up premiums.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”
Rather than trying to curb costs and help patients, he said the industry is busy “figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they’re earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing.”
I’m wondering if when this is all over, people will look back to the BS report from Price Waterhouse Coopers as the turning point in the debate.
Trinity
This makes me happy.
Violet
It’s so refreshing to hear a president speak the truth and stand up for the average citizen, not the rich corporations. Obama isn’t perfect, but he’s so much better than any president I can remember. Hearing this kind of talk, along with Grayson’s, makes me think there could possibly be hope for the Democratic party.
Okay, now I’m delusional.
donovong
Looks like AHIP brought a knife to a gunfight.
Beauzeaux
Good on him. I wish this aspect of Obama would be in evidence more often.
Notorious P.A.T.
God forbid the will of voters be the turning point.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
If it does turn out that way (too soon to tell), then chalk up another victory for Obama rope-a-dope tactics. You would think that opponents at some point would figure out that when the man makes a good faith offer to negotiate with them, they would be well advised to take it rather than trying to hold out for the whole enchilada. And maybe spend a little bit of time acquainting themselves with the basics of min-max game theory and iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma stategies.
aimai
Well, it made me very happy. But I can’t square this Obama, who actually seems to get that this is a life or death battle between the Insurance companies/bluedog/republican death lobby and everyone else and the Obama who has so far given no sign that the Public Option or Single Payer are, in fact, the only way to go. Give the Insurance company any hope of reconstituting and dominating the market and the game is up.
Anybody here a fan of Wen Spencer’s Ukiah Oregon series? If the insurance companies are the Ontongard–evil, semi intelligent pond scum–we are going to need to chop them to bits and burn them into ash before we can control the situation and get health care for all.
aimai
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
That requires reading.
BR
It’ll only be the turning point if we ratchet up the pressure on the senate. Otherwise it’ll be a missed opportunity. Everyone here needs to write to the senate now.
I wrote the following today to Feinstein and Boxer:
joe from Lowell
The Stephen Hawking episode was the turning point in the debate. The PwC study was ginned up because the momentum had already shifted, and was growing.
Derelict
Soon (I hope) someone will get around to asking why, exactly, the health insurance industry exists. They produce nothing, and present a HUGE drain on resources both in the healthcare industry and to society as a whole.
Joel
@Beauzeaux: He’d rapidly lose effectiveness taking that tact.
Chris
The phrase “ham handed” comes to mind…So “ham handed” in fact…that many of the true believers over at FDL just assumed it was planned…to make Max Baucus’s crappy bill look good to everyone…
It’d pretty pretty slick were it the case….(one has to give credit where its due…even for evil incarnate)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
semi-O/T, but this story (hat tip to CalcRisk) also strikes me as something of a turning point, given the degree to which Larry Summers has in the past been a poster boy for what William Buiter called “cognitive regulatory capture” by Wall St.:
Is our children learning?
Brachiator
This is great stuff (and it will be interesting to see how the conservative Sunday pundits attack this and come to the defense of the insurance industry).
Now the bigger challenge, as always, will be whether Congress will come up with effective legislation, or another drizzle of lame, ineffective bullcrap, which has been so typical of them since Obama’s election. And no matter how much he wants to be bipartisan and simply provide a roadmap rather than directives, Obama is going to have to be more hands-on in detailing not only what he wants, but how it should be accomplished.
Bill H
And I just got a bill from the hospital for a charge of $8,126.63 with no explanation of what procedure it was for, no name of the doctor ordering the procedure, and not even the date on which it was performed. Merely, “Your insurance company has informed us that you are responsible for the stated portion of this expense.”
I called the hospital’s “Patient Financial Services” department and found out that the service was performed on 7/22/09, but they could not tell me the doctor’s name or what the procedure was, and told me to call my insurance company to find out. I told her I was not paying the bill until I received a statement from the hospital with that information.
I did nonetheless research the issue, and the $8,126.63 charge was for a procedure that took a technician 20 minutes to perform. So that technician is generating more than $24,000 per hour in billing for the hospital.
I’m certainly glad we are correcting the problem with those rapacious insurance companies.
anonevent
Obama doesn’t know the outcome, but I do believe we are seeing some good results from his forcing Congress to create the bill. We’re talking about a public option without it being Obama’s public option. We’e also talking about Democrats standing up to the Republicans – technically just Grayson, but you have to start somewhere – where if Obama had taken charge from the beginning
we wouldn’t even have the progressive caucus being willing to stand together. This really bodes well for future projects, such as repealing DADT.
Leelee for Obama
@Bill H: You should send a copy of the bill and the ensuing telephone conversations to your Rep. and Senators, as well as the WH. It’s ridiculous that they don’t itemize and leave it to the insurance company to explain-’cause they’re so very trustworthy. I find it absolutely amazing that this kind of stuff wasn’t plastered all over the media all the while, let alone during the past few months.
I think Obama, if not the preponderance of Democrats, really understands the meaning of keep your powder dry. He gave the Cartel every opportunity to take a step back and begin to be mildly profitable businesses and then watched them go batshit in a mad effort to remain the blood-sucking assholes they are. Now, all he needs to do is keep pointing out how reasonable he’s been, how inclusive, and they just won’t be the public service they should be, so it’s time to crush their power.
pragmatic idealist
I’m a retired CPA and CFO and this episode makes me rather sad as I reflect on a time when CPA firms had earned our trust and respect. My grandfather would never have countenanced the slightest irregularity on a client’s tax return, but by the eighties the big CPA firms were marketing dubious tax avoidance schemes. They sold reputations built up over many decades for short term profit.
Comrade Jake
@aimai:
The all-or-nothing approach, from the beginning, simply isn’t smart strategy.
The Grand Panjandrum
It appears the real turning point came some time after Obama started going out and publicly speaking for reform AND after the townhall teabaggers started bitching about death panels and euthanizing granny. So we can thank Palin, Bachmann and Joe the Heckler as much as AHIP.
Sanka
You’re probably right.
By that time, however, the nation will be scurrying around, sucking on rocks for nourishment, bankrupt and destitute, wondering how our government and supporters of “healthcare reform” bought their OWN BS, fed by a firecely partisan government, from unread legislation, and promises of lower costs, higher quality care, unicorns and rainbows.
fraught
This is a very effective tack for Obama. Attacking insurance companies forces Republican legislators to defend them and there is covert enmity against the guys at desks running health care among even the most craven tea-baggers.
Svensker
@pragmatic idealist:
Yes. Accounting and banking should never have become sexy. They were MEANT to be stodgy, conservative, and full of old-fashioned rectitude.
Svensker
@Sanka:
We could always head over to Iraq and suck on some of the big fancy rocks you made us pay for over there. They’re very tasty!
PeakVT
Obama Plays Hardball
Well attacking the insurance companies is nice and all, but the main obstacle to reform continues to be Reid and Conservacrat Senators.
dr. bloor
@Bill H:
If you think you have an unreasonable charge on your bill, contact your state’s health or insurance commissioner to run the procedures/costs by them.
donovong
Amen.
The insurance companies were given every opportunity to play along, just like the pharmaceuticals and providers. I suspect Obama knew one of the evildoers would turn on him, and was just biding his time until they showed their true colors. Road Runner – beep, beep.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Svensker:
For two trillion dollars, we should be able to eat Iraqi children.
donovong
@Sanka: “By that time, however, the nation will be scurrying around, sucking on rocks for nourishment, bankrupt and destitute, wondering how our government and supporters of “The Iraq War” bought their OWN BS, fed by a firecely partisan government, from faulty intelligence , and promises of enhanced national security.
Fixed, asshole.
Martin
I guess the window for bipartisanship and cooperation is officially over. Let’s hope Obama is willing to take the fight to Democrats as well.
NR
Wow, Obama is talking tough. And yet, he’s working behind the scenes to screw us over:
How many times have we seen this before? The Democratic leadership (with Obama’s full support) makes the most conservative bill the default, and everything that progressives want is on the outside fighting to get in. And of course, in the Senate, that means that the public option will need 60 votes to make it into the bill by amendment, which of course will never happen because we have at least half a dozen “Democrats” who are bought and paid for by the private insurance industry, and that’s apparently just fine with Obama and the Democratic leadership. So the public option will get 52 or 53 votes, we’ll all get emails from Senate Democrats talking about how hard they tried, and then they’ll go on to pass a bill that makes it required by law for you to give money to a useless middleman who makes obscene profits by denying you critical medical care.
I’m sick of this shit. There’s no point getting excited about anything Obama says anymore. Not when he’s so willing to work behind the scenes to screw us all over.
Elie
Bill H
In all fairness, there is a lot of information missing here.
Threading a catheter up someone’s artery may take only 20 minutes also, for example, but is a very skilled procedure requiring advanced training. That training and skill is not and should not be free.
Obviously, I do not know what you did or did not receive and not interested in your personal business, but just saying something “just took 20 minutes” is insufficient to relate the level of skill required..
By all means, explore and follow up if you think this was an unreasonable charge. I am just questioning your assertion that just because it took 20 minutes that it was some low skill procedure that should have been maybe 20 bucks.
donovong
@NR: So, you believe everything you read on the NY Times blog, huh?
Sasha
@Beauzeaux:
Quite the opposite actually.
Obama’s talent is he’s the adult in the room — the one cool head and reasonable voice in a chamber of bellowing, chest-thumping wannabe tough kids. When he loses it (as far as that example of human Valium can), it reverberates much more than if he habitually populist.
NR
@donovong: Believe me, if I’m wrong, I will happily admit it.
What are you going to do if it turns out that I’m right?
OriGuy
@Bill H: @Bill H: Maybe the charge was for the machine that goes ping!
donovong
@NR: I have been an Obama supporter since 2006. I live in one of the most backward, Red states there is. We are talking about the Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds, and Joe Wilson, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham. What I am NOT going to do is abandon Obama simply because I didn’t get a public option in the healthcare reform bill. I consider that to be short-sighted and petulant, at best. I sure as hell am not going to start clutching my pearls and looking for the fainting couch because of something I read on the NY Times blog. If that were the standard for my bahavior, I would have had to give up and crawl under a rock during the primaries.
Sorry, but I am not going to give up on all the things I want just because I didn’t get one thing.
pragmatic idealist
Sasha nailed it. While the verdict is obviously out on how effective a president Obama will be, what he is doing is consistent with how he ran his campaign. His pacing was a great strength. While the McCain people were throwing everything they could get their hands on against the wall to see what would stick long enough to win one or two daily news cycles, Obama was patient and strove to time his attacks so that they would have maximum impact.
stacie
@Sanka: Why do conservatives hate unicorns and rainbows?
NR
@donovong: I guess this is where you and I differ, then. If Obama signs a health care reform bill that results in skyrocketing prices and pitiful customer service (what incentive will the insurance companies have to provide good customer service if the government is forcing people to buy their product?), I am perfectly prepared to throw his ass to the teabagging wolves come 2012.
I was a huge Obama supporter all through last year. But my continued support for him is not automatic. It is contingent upon what he does while in office. (And I do mean what he does, not what he says.)
kay
@donovong:
Follow NR’s link and read the story. I thought it was quite positive for the public option. There’s one sentence on the White House. I didn’t really see secret negotiations to screw us over being the big issue.
It’s about the hot debate among Democrats on the various flavors of the public option. I think it’s going great.
Wyden is gaining substantive points, by being practical and persuasive, as usual.
I feel better about this than I have in weeks, not because of anything Obama does or doesn’t do, but because the Democrats in Congress who want a robust public option finally got off their ass, and started addressing the real questions about how this might work. I think they’re gaining.
ruemara
@NR:
Having read your link, I’m not sure how “Obama is trying to screw us over”. It sounds more like the Senate Dems are trying to separate the bill into what will pass easily, versus, what won’t. You realize that the issue is what sort of public option that will be included, right? You also realize that a primary issue is also one of health insurance reforms, which are not completely dependent on the public option. Since the Senate and the House are both still working out the details of the public option from various bills, why would the WH staff in question be focused on the as yet nebulous public option? As a strategy, the Senate leadership has been discussing splitting the bill into the mostly non-controversial portion that can pass with the 60 majority and then using reconciliation for the controversial public option. It just seems that you’re not reading text you want, say, “WH staff are working to convince Senate leadership to put in a public option in the complete bill, no matter what”, while glossing over the procedural difficulty that could leave us with no bill whatsoever.
Hey, I want single payer, but I’m not sure Americans can handle that big a change in the system right away. Half of this “Obama will screw us over” meme seems to forget that no matter what Obama wants, american voters keep electing people who will screw them over in the senate & the house, and they also stand there and kvetch at the wrong guy instead of inundating their elected officials in addition to their president.
Napoleon
FINALLY!
When I thought I might go into litigation and not do transactional law work I recall one seminar I had where the speaker was a very successful trial attorney and I remember him saying that if you had a witness that was a liar you could not expect the jury to conclude that they were if you were not willing to stand in front of them as part of your closing argument, look them in the eye, and tell them the guy is a liar. Why should they believe it if you are not willing to even say it. It is a very simple lesson that nearly no Dem politicians seem to understand.
Bill H
Where did I say that it should have been “maybe 20 bucks”? Show me where I said that.
What possible skill or training would justify $24,000 per fucking hour? My neurologist, who has, what, fifteen years of training and education, only charges in the neighborhood of $1000 per hour for office visits. I was at one time being treated by a neurosurgeon and his rate was just under $2000 per hour. When he was doing surgery it was about $10,000 per hour. What possible skill does a fucking x-ray technician have that justifies $24,000 per hour?
Yeah, I know, they have to pay for the machine. At $24,000 per hour it gets paid off how many times before it wears out? And that neurologist has to pay for the cost of his education, too. He’s not charging $24,000 per hour to pay off his college bills.
The whole point of my anecdote is that reform needs to address hospital costs, drug costs, and lab costs. Bloviating about how bad the insurance companies are and allowing hospitals, labs and drug companies to charge whatever prices they want to charge is not solving the problem.
Napoleon
@ruemara:
I don’t think you really understand what you are talking about. The whole ball of wax for the public option is putting it in the original bill. If it is not in the original bill it is all but automatically dead since it will have to be proposed by an amendment which means it can be SEPARATELY filibustered. If it is in the original bill you have the exact opposite effect where all you need is 40 of the 52 Senators who have come out for the public option to block the strip. That leaves the bill where in order for it not to pass a Dem has to join a Republican filibuster (which is not going to happen, and if it does Obama and Reid could destroy the person who does it). If the leadership strips the public option it is simply because they are prostitutes who do not want to piss off their paymasters.
kay
@Napoleon:
That’s the closing argument. After the witnesses. You wanted him to start there?
The insurance companies hadn’t weighed in (well, not as blatantly as this). The tea parties hadn’t happened. Republicans hadn’t, um, offered their ideas.
He was supposed to discredit their statements before they made them?
NR
@Napoleon:
Actually, that’s not the issue at all. The issue is whether or not the leadership is going to put ANY public option in the bill. Again:
It’s very simple. If the Democratic leadership leaves the public option out of the bill (and they will only do this if they have the White House’s blessing), then it will require 60 votes to add it by amendment. And a public option amendment will not get 60 votes thanks to “Democrats” like Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad. So, the simple fact of the matter is that if the Democratic leadership leaves the public option out of the merged Senate bill, there will not be a public option in the final Senate bill that passes. And they know this full well.
Now, it’s possible that this NYT report is inaccurate. I really hope it is. But I’ve seen this sort of play too many times before to doubt that it’s happening now.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
Most Americans easily handle change, especially when stuff works. Conservatives and traditionalists fought hard against Social Security and later Medicare. Today, both of those programs are as American as apple pie.
Americans can handle single payer or a public option. Even a good slice of teabaggers will fall in line if the resulting health care reform package yields meaningful and measurable results.
donovong
@NR: “(And I do mean what he does, not what he says.)”
Sounds to me like you are fully prepared to throw him to the wolves over one line of potential bullshit that is spread by a blog posting on the NY Times.
Your position strikes me as nothing more than that of a fair-weather supporter, at best.
donovong
@kay: I read the story, and it sounds just like the 5000 other “stories” I have read in the last few months that purport to have some sort of magical insights into the back room processes of all this, all or mot of which are based purely on peculation and imagination.
kay
@Napoleon:
He’s been saying since opening “they will tell you….”
Then the insurance companies did. So he pounced. I do think he has to wait until they say it.
Napoleon
@kay:
I have no idea of what you are saying since I never said he should have called them liars back in, say, June. The “finally” was that he/the Democrats are fighting hard, though I don’t expect it to last since I have really come to believe he is a ball-less sell out.
@NR:
Are you responding to something I said?
kay
@donovong:
Oh, I agree. I think it’s moving in the right direction. I don’t think Obama is a three dimensional chess player, or any of that, but I do think it’s moving in the right direction, and I’m willing to credit the liberal Democrats in Congress for moving it there.
I wish there was a Grand Obama Plan. It’s a big, compromised mash-up, like all legislation.
Elie
Bill H
I apologize and did not intend to offend you.
I in no way was trying to say that your complaint about cost inflation was completely unjustified —
Just that the charge may not just reflect the skill of the technologist alone, but also maybe any other resources (machines, equipment, other techniques or personnel who interpret results) that are used in the procedure.
You did not say $20 bucks and I did not say that you did — that was my characterization or proxy for “inexpensive”
I find that in some medical situations, not all of what the patient sees is what is involved in their care. That is a separate issue to some extent from what the price of the services are, but not entirely.
Again, no intent to offend. More to give information that you may not be aware of. My background is in nursing
kay
@Napoleon:
I know you think he’s a sell-out. I think if he had started with single player we’d have ended up at the same place, but we would have wasted a crucial 6 months, and ended up with nothing, because we wouldn’t have 5 bills out of committee.
30 Senators signed the letter making public option do or die. Thirty. Ignoring that won’t make it go away. Obama can’t make it go away.
Napoleon
This is great on exactly what the discussion on if the public option is in or out of the final mark up of the bill means.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/17/793903/-Remember-the-Painless-Filibuster
Elie
Brachiator:
It is not that Americans in aggregate can’t handle change conceptually, and eventually in actuality.
Its that the details and process of that change, who is impacted in the short term and how, that effect us in the short term…
Clearly, there will be huge job changes and work role changes in the provider and insurance industry — as well as for the employers who have large benefit coordinators employed in their companies. Eventually, everyone will have jobs, but they may have to change them. That disruption is what they fear and rail against…not that single payer per se is a bad idea.
We have been confusing to some extent, opposition to specific polity with opposition to the change required to make that policy happen. Its a huge issue.
We have seen people in burning buildings standing on ledges, waiting to the last minute, the fire licking literally at their backs before jumping. That is how some people in the health care and insurance industries are feeling. We can pooh pooh their feelings, but their fear drives the decision making and the approval for this change.
So again, I agree that ultimately people will be fine and will love having everyone covered and possibly some version of single payer. But do not underestimate the change that will be required to get there, and the immense pressure on the administration, legislature and agencies to make it happen with the least disruption possible.
It is going to be even harder and meaner than now — and this is pretty damned bad.
georgia pig
@Bill H: You’re missing an important point as to why the insurance cartel is part of what you’re complaining about. Note that the insurer didn’t pay the expense. The hospital agrees to negotiated rates with insurers to get on the preferred provider lists, which is the heart of the cartelization. If a hospital doesn’t join up, it gets cut out of an enormous patient pool that has a far higher likelihood of payment and a guaranteed number of customers. Because of the monopolization effect, however, there is that much pressure on the insurers to keep the costs low, because they can usually pass them on to their customers, which are the companies (and their employees) that pay the premiums. It’s not like there is much of difference between insurers (e.g., BCBS ain’t much different than UHC). I’ve seen this dance for our firm for a decade. UHC threatens a 20% increase. BCBS rides in on a white horse and offers a “mere” 9% increase. It happens year after year, with different parties playing different roles at various times. There’s also not a lot of price sensitivity because this is all buried in the employees’ compensation. It’s a classic oligopoly.
You have to have volume to keep the doors open at a capital-intensive business like a hospital. Empty beds, unused MRI machines, etc., are a financial disaster. That’s why big hospitals go around buying smaller hospitals. It’s all about market share. This is all exacerbated by the lack of antitrust constraints on health insurers, which allows them to lock up large numbers of paying customers. It all conspires to raise costs, and no one wants to end the system because a lot of people are locked into it and either like it a lot or don’t want to get left holding the bag when and if the system is unwound. Hospitals make big capital commitments based on it. Doctors go deeply into debt because of it.
The ridiculous “rack rate” that you got quoted justifies the more “reasonable” insurance reimbursements. If you ever look at your bills, insurers never pay the rack rate. If a hospital is able to collect the rack rate from an uninsured patient, great. If not, it gives them leverage for collecting something, justifies their own “reasonable” reimbursement levels for insured work and/or goes on the balance sheet as write off. It’s a nasty little game.
henqiguai
@aimai (#7):
Yo ! present ! Okay, so I’m a fan of science fiction in general. But I’m disappointed there may not be anymore in the series beyond Dog Warrior.
Interesting concept of the Insurance Industry as the Ontongard. President Obama’s our Ukiah ?
NR
@donovong: What part of “If Obama signs a health care reform bill that results in skyrocketing prices and pitiful customer service” did you not understand?
I am watching to see what Obama will do. That will determine whether or not I continue to support him. Nothing else will.
Brachiator
@Napoleon:
Interesting procedural stuff, but I think that this is the bottom line:
Single payer is not the magic solution that American progressives think it is. If it were, every country with universal health care would use a single payer model. They don’t.
A public option means nothing if it is not vigorously defended against cherry picking and other attacks by the insurance industry. Other posters have provided great links showing how states that enacted various public option plans saw them collapse under determined efforts by insurance companies to undermine them.
If Democrats in Congress foolishly believe that they can pass health care legislation that is nothing more than weak-ass window dressing, they will be doing little more than writing their political obituaries.
NR
@Napoleon: Sorry, I clicked the wrong reply button. My response was to ruemara.
henqiguai
@henqiguai (#60):
D*mmit, where’s the underlining on the book title Dog Warrior ? We got no underlining in dis joint ??
I’d call Cole out on this oversight, except I did three semester at W&J and know they grow ’em out in the tri-state region bigger than, and almost as crazy, as back where I grew up (DC).
Shawn in ShowMe
According to the NY Times, the Max Baucus bill died a month ago. Why is anyone still citing them as a source?
Elie
kay
Appreciate your comments as they relate to the reality of making policy…
Too much of the time, even on this site where there tends to be more deliberation, we can’t seem to get or accept the reality of what a huge process this whole health care is and the jamungus nature of what has been taken on..
Obama gets little credit from anybody for it — too many speak in terms of how easy and smooth this SHOULD have been. They don’t live in the real world and they are part of the reason this change has been so hard to bring about…
Also, there is little awareness and realization about what a b—-h this is going to be to implement. Again, we must do it, but its going to make this look like a walk in the park. This will take years to implement and everyone — everyone I assure you will be bitchin and moanin the whole time about how it should have been done better..
Cant wait.
Svensker
@henqiguai:
Anyone ever notice that Ukiah spelled backwards is haiku? Is that deep, or what?
tc125231
So what’s his point? That’s what modern private insurance companies DO.
Is he ready to endorse the public option?
kay
@Elie:
I think he’s in a stronger position to sell the public option than he was in June. His poll numbers are up, and the tea parties weren’t effective, and Republicans offered nothing to counter, and now the insurance companies have shown their hand. The polling is in on the public option, most people have a vague idea of what it is, because of this endless, agonizing debate, and they like it. There’s grudging media support, I think they follow polls, actually.
Despite every pundit’s prediction, support for “reform” (whatever that means) has risen slightly, not tanked.
There’s no effective outside opposition left. Now it’s just Democrats. We could list the Democratic opposition, by name. That’s narrowing the field, and it’s progress.
I’m genuinely not unhappy with the way this is going. There’s a lot of moving parts, and, of course, HUGE profits at stake,so there’s reason for trepidation, but, no, I don’t think Obama is working against my best interests. I think he does fine, generally, given the magnitude of his various tasks.
General Winfield Stuck
Am burnt on politics and blogging today, but just had to share this little applet of wisdom from our national concern troll that is Peg Nooner.
Now that’s deep Svenkser :-)
The Brains are coming, lock up the lil childen. Mercy sakes alive as my granny used to say.
eemom
@Elie:
quite right. And I think it is sheer Hamsheresque bullshit to suggest that Obama is trying to undermine the public option or otherwise “sell us out.” I think he is trying to get the best deal he can that is realistically achievable in the, you know, real world.
I fiercely want a public option, and I hate the fucking insurance companies just as fiercely, but the fact is that the bill is NOT worthless even if it doesn’t include a public option. The mere fact that the insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover people based on pre-existing conditions or drop them when they get sick is a HUGE change for the good.
And HOORAY for what Obama said today.
Elie
kay
One day we may appreciate what is happening for its positive effect on getting government to “work” again after a period of almost complete incompetence and irrelevance.
(I believe that this is truly behind much of the screeching by the opposition — they are like vampires being hit with sunlight)
I KNOW that we are living in momentous times — that one day we may forget the day to day sometimes trivial and stupid of how things went, but we will shake our heads in disbelief of what we lived through and the ultimate good of it…maybe something like having lived through the passage of civil rights though all the church bombings and murder of civil rights workers – or WW II as the concentration camps were revealed…
A few years ago I used to climb and there was such pleasure in looking back through the highlights of the mountain, the big challenges, the danger avoided or overcome. I used to sleep so well and felt so deeply good then!
Maybe one day for all of us, after this…
SiubhanDuinne
@svensker 3:24 pm
You think THAT’S deep? What about Oregon? Oregon spelled backwards is NOGERO.
Elie
eemom
Yeah — I think he is closing in for the kill on the big insurers and as kay said upstring, things are going in the right direction
I for one believe that the success of this eventual passage of health care reform, will help bring about the momentum to deal with the next monster in the cave — the biggest, meanest one — reform and re-inforcement of control on the financial sector…
Well, lets hitch up our britches and get after it! When this much big stuff is ahead, all you can do is keep moving!
eemom
@tc125231:
what’s his point? To scare the shit out of the insurance companies that they could lost the antitrust exemption, which would also be HUGE.
If that got momentum, even the rethuglicans would be hard-pressed to stop it, because there would be no smokescreen of “higher taxes, big bad government” to hide behind. They would stand like the naked emperors they are, for all the world to see, as nothing but tools for the big, fat, profit-bloated insurance industry.
henqiguai
@Svensker (#67):
Heh. Don’t know about anyone else, but I never noticed. And, I’m also not willing to grant that insight to the original settlers of the character’s namesake Ukiah, OR. And if I recall the first book in the series, “Ukiah” is a Native American name/word. So, alas, it’s just a coincidence of the transliteration of the name. Cool, but still a coincidence.
On topic, though, I wish I could actually comment on this issue, but I’m of a mind that too much of what is occurring is behind the scenes, leaving most of us with just conjecture. Also, I live with the understanding that the formulation of law is one d*mned ugly process and ain’t no-one gonna get all that they want; by design of our government – that whole deliberative and compromising process thingie. Pisses me off that so many people with whom I stand (e.g. the general population here at BJ) are apparently so intentionally ignorant of the process. Or are just being maximal WATBs.
Wile E. Quixote
@sanka
Sucking on rocks for nourisment? Oh no, if those dark days ever come I’m going to be eating barbecued wingnut. Slow moving, not too bright and chock-full of calorie rich fat, wingnut is going to be “the other white meat”, in more ways than one.
Calouste
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Summers doesn’t realize (or maybe he does) that crises are bad things for most people, but not for all.
Elie
Wile E Coyote @ 77
Yeah — what a hoot! yuk, yuk yuk…
You just have to be careful cause they carry brain disease that you can catch from eating them even after years… kinda like Mad Cow disease….
Jorge
It is almost as if he had spent his entire life trying to accomplish things when the entitled, wealthy, conservative establishment was telling him he couldn’t. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this guys made his bones in Chicago politics.
Wile E. Quixote
@georgia pig
The solution to this is simple; ban the rack rate. Require health care providers to offer one price for service to everyone, insured and uninsured. If they don’t like it, tough shit.
drillfork
Wasn’t Obama talking about regulating bonuses for bailed out banksters? How did that work out?
Deeds, not words…
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Republicans had ample opportunity to make a strong case for their plan. God knows they got plenty of free media. They had the whole summer.
They chose, instead, to block every provision in every proposal, and talk senselessly about deregulation, purely as political strategy. Their constituents should be furious, because their constituents lack accessible health care. They did JACK.
Peggy Noonan is an enabler. Of course, she’s sitting pretty with an affordable plan, so why would she give a shit? This is all a theoretical exercise, to her.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Health care executives fear that their big paydays may get a little smaller. Members of Congress fear that their bribe and kickback envelopes may not be as fat as in the past. And although this may be valid, it has little to do with the fears of the American people in general to change.
For the most part, the American people are mere bystanders to the health care debate. On both sides of the ideological divide, their concerns are generally ignored or exploited for political gain. A while back, there was a great photo of interested parties in the gallery as Congress debated health care. Everyone was a lobbyist or member of a special interest group.
The number of people in the health care industry who might lose a job is miniscule in comparison to the millions who have lost their jobs in this recession. And I have never seen anybody say that they oppose health care reform because a benefit coordinator might lose his or her job.
A lot of the concerns of the majority of Americans boil down to “what does health care reform mean for me?” And the Democrats until recently have done a poor job of making the case for any substantive change, leaving a knowledge gap that conservatives have eagerly exploited.
kay
@Elie:
It’s just endless. I went to the Democratic dinner I told you about and was met, almost at the door, by angry teachers. They’re mad at Arne Duncan. He intends to reform public education, and he’s got data that says (surprise!) teacher performance is linked to student achievement.
I agree with him. There’s no reason incompetent teachers shouldn’t get fired. Sorry, teachers. That probably has to happen.
This county has 17% unemployment. 70% of our stimulus funds went to public education teacher and program retention.
I felt like saying this: “cry me a fucking river”. I did not, of course.
kay
@Wile E. Quixote:
I love the sweet and gentle nature of this commenter.
Very amusing, as usual, so thanks for that.
kay
@Elie:
This guy says it better: he’s a “frustrated” liberal House member (the co-author of the much-lied about “death panel provision”)
“And though some of his preferred legislative approaches might be stalled or fall victim to compromise, Mr. Blumenauer said he believed that Mr. Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress would ultimately be successful in advancing a liberal agenda on the major issues.
“We are going to be working on climate, on health care, on the economy for every minute of the next two Congresses and beyond,” he said. “Will the public be patient enough? Will the political process hold together?
“This is not going to be easy,” he said, “but I think we are seeing a process that makes me actually optimistic, even though it is not exactly like I would have liked.”
Elie
Brachiator:
I wasnt saying that the number of those losing their jobs would be huge, just that some would have to be changing the nature of their jobs …
Also, not saying that we should not do this because anyone would lose a job
Just stating that there is a lot of fear about change — whether or not its completely justified
BethanyAnne
@Svensker: Like that naive water, Evian. :-)
dr. bloor
@Bill H:
So just to be clear, you’re more interested in possibly misusing an anecdote to make a politcal point, rather than to find out if you’ve actually been ripped off.
dr. bloor
@Wile E. Quixote:
I’m guessing you don’t have a very good idea of how often sliding fees (both out of pocket and as reflected in differential reimbursement rates by different insurers) benefit the patient, not the practitioner. If I insisted on my base fee–which, I can assure you, is not at all out of line with standard practice, and roughly a third of what every attorney I know makes–about 60% of my practice would be shit out of luck.
Wile E. Quixote
@dr. bloor
Who really benefits? Uninsured patients don’t, if you’re uninsured the rack rate is like having 14 inches of syphilitic, warty cock stuffed down your throat. My GP charges my insurance company 100 dollars a visit, if I didn’t have insurance I’d get charged $160 for a visit. Given the fact that getting reimbursement from insurance companies is a huge pain in the ass the sliding scale doesn’t do much except enrich the insurance companies at the expense of uninsured patients who don’t have the clout to beat down doctors. If you want a health insurance system where uninsured patients subsidize insurance companies and where smaller insurance companies that don’t have as much clout subsidize larger ones that do the rack rate is absolutely fantastic.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I remember that there was pressure for the legislators to produce something before they recessed for August. I seem to remember that there was a sense of urgency to get something done quickly. Thus the nuts cranking themselves up to 11 and going balls to the wall against it.
Anyone who knows the typical GOP response (and even the response from blue dogs) when confronted with something that might affect their bottom line (read: political contributions) is for the GOP to howl loudly and go off the deep end. Usually this results in them getting what they want but this time I think Obama played them like a violin. He knew what was going to happen so he wanted them to crank it up to 11 right away. He knew they would lose their wind, that they couldn’t keep it cranked to 11 without sane people getting sick of listening to the heated rhetoric from the insane.
Add to that his trying to get the insurance companies to back off with some ‘deal’ that was made behind closed doors, keeping the antitrust provisions as an ace up his sleeve in case they stabbed him in the back (which he probably figured as inevitable). Then there is his not taking a strong position with the public option which had the effect of throwing his enemies off because they couldn’t attack him with it. In fact, he has kept his ‘demands’ to a minimum, instead letting the sausage factory churn out its crap.
He gave everyone plenty of ropes to play with and now he just yanked back on one with his mentioning the antitrust provisions they enjoy being taken away. It will be interesting to see what happens with health stocks on Monday…lol
Will we get everything we want? No, probably not. But I do think we have someone in the presidency who is more than marginally better than what the other side offered us, and that this President is not one of the usual politicians we are used to seeing. I am looking forward to more hardball from Obama, but I am happy to wait until he thinks he needs to unleash it.
He has kept generally himself above the healthcare fray, even trying to give the insurance companies a hand in what is going on instead of freezing them out. Now that they have attacked the process in an attempt to poison it, Obama can open a can of whoop-ass on them (or threaten to).
The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, enjoy the show. :)