I’m happy to note that the reaction to Obama’s speech has been much more positive than I could have ever imagined. K-thug even gave it high praise:
First things first: I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.
Of course, it isn’t likely to become law, thanks to G.O.P. opposition. Nor is anything else likely to happen that will do much to help the 14 million Americans out of work. And that is both a tragedy and an outrage.
***O.K., about the Obama plan: It calls for about $200 billion in new spending — much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs — and $240 billion in tax cuts. That may sound like a lot, but it actually isn’t. The lingering effects of the housing bust and the overhang of household debt from the bubble years are creating a roughly $1 trillion per year hole in the U.S. economy, and this plan — which wouldn’t deliver all its benefits in the first year — would fill only part of that hole. And it’s unclear, in particular, how effective the tax cuts would be at boosting spending.
Still, the plan would be a lot better than nothing, and some of its measures, which are specifically aimed at providing incentives for hiring, might produce relatively a large employment bang for the buck. As I said, it’s much bolder and better than I expected. President Obama’s hair may not be on fire, but it’s definitely smoking; clearly and gratifyingly, he does grasp how desperate the jobs situation is.
That’s high praise for Krugman. And he was right- Obama’s plan and speech were great. Every time he talks, I remember why I voted for him. In other post speech reaction, the Politico reports the following:
A top economist says President Barack Obama’s job plan will likely add 1.9 million jobs and grow the economy by 2 percent.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, also said Obama’s $447-billion plan would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point, United Press International reported on Friday.
Now again, this is a ratings agency, so you might as well be polling random crackheads and asking them who will win the Super Bowl in 2027. But still, it at least it sounds positive and can be used to bludgeon Congress into doing something.
I didn’t watch any of the bobblehead reaction, and I have refrained from turning the boob tube on today (it’s too nice a day and I’m in a good mood), so I have no idea how the reaction was among the walking dead the DC Press Corps, but I haven’t seen any primal screams on twitter, so I’m imagining it was pretty positive.
The fake fake al
Power was out in San Diego so no speech and no football. Damn, had to play monopoly with the fam by candle light and even talk to the neighbors.
Culture of Truth
Mark Zandi was John McCain’s chief economic advisor in 2008.
So, you know, he’s probably a big commie or something.
EconWatcher
My guess is that Boehner will want to pass at least some portion of this, but will not be able to get his caucus in line.
But then, I have a more favorable view of Boehner than probably most on this blog. He seems to me an old school bidness Republican, with perhaps more than a whiff of corruption about him, but mostly just doing deals and occasionally doing something for the country to salve his atrophied conscience.
I don’t think he would knowingly, intentionally try to tank the country. Now Cantor….
RP
That’s definitely the Lions’ year.
A L
My favorite part of the speech was when Obama praised the Georgia Program where companies are bribed to hire indentured servants. Yes this is a great plan.
FlipYrWhig
I’m still very curious about whether the EPA pollution brouhaha was related in any way to the plan laid out in the speech. (I was looking for “green jobs” as a key component, but I was wrong.) I haven’t been going out of my way to look, but I feel like I would have heard dismissive noises from a few Manchins, McCaskills, and Nelsons by now. So if even the conserva-Dems are on board with the package, that’s interesting, and I’d like to know how the White House pulled it off.
cathyx
So what changes to Medicare and medicaid does Obama want to make that some people in his own party will not be happy with? I’m sure the changes will only be to add to it, not take anything away. After all, that would hold tight to his democratic principles.
NMP
I wish I had turned off the tv and not watched the post speech coverage on MSNBC. Lawrence then Rachel then ED then Tweety did their individual and collective best to stir controversy about the President factually stating that Medicare and Medicaid are heading toward insolvency, something even Krugman concedes. ED gave more defense and praise to Rick Perry calling SS a ponzi scheme, seeming to agree with him that it needs to be reformed. They attempted to get liberal economists to be underwhelmed by the speech, but they would not cooperate giving the president nothing but high praise. Finally they were able to get Keith Ellison and another member of the CBC to go from high praise to cautious optimism and concern about Medicare/Medicaid cuts. I guess black unemployment has been resolved now that the President is urging passage of HIS bill that they were imploring him to craft just last week. I guess it’s Nevermind…Maxine Waters is grabbing her good wig for the multi-million dollar week long CBC gathering in DC the week of September 21st.
Lastly, Tweeted seemed to be offended hat the President mentioned Warren Buffet and called for rich folks to pay their fair share of taxes. He didn’t like that type of “silly” rhetoric at all. I guess he’s worried about him and his neighbors in Chevy Chase one of the richest enclaves in the country facing the wrath of their housekeepers. Or maybe he’s worried about his wife’s rich Republican bosses at Marriott.
FlipYrWhig
@cathyx:
Probably changes to the provider side, which some people in his own party have a hard time understanding to be different from changes to benefits and hence rush to misinterpret throughout the blogosphere, and/or things like the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a cost-controlling mechanism that some people in his own party are trying to sandbag.
singfoom
@A L: I’m curious. This is one of the refrains I’ve been hearing a bit of, and I did some digging, and the program has been very low in terms of people participating in it, and the wages are low, but how do you arrived at “indentured servants”?
They continue to receive unemployment insurance and get a pitifully small stipend ($600), and they might get a job in the end.
I definitely see some weakness in the program and the stipend seems pitifully weak, but they’re not indebted to the employer…
cathyx
@FlipYrWhig: So what does “changes on the provider side” mean?
NMP
Cathyx,
He’s already on record as wanting to lower the payout to providers, NOT beneficiaries. I’m not an economists and I don’t pretend to be one anonymously on blogs like so many others, but I do know that most mainstream economists, as many left as right and center, have consistently said something needs to be done because both programs facing insolvency. To ignore reality doesn’t make one a true progressive.
cathyx
@singfoom: Why would a employer hire you after the term is up? They pay you nothing for your labor, when the term is up, let you go, and then get another free worker to replace you.
cathyx
@NMP: Do you think that lowering payouts to providers will make them want to treat anyone who pays with medicare? Maybe they will ask grandma to chip in to make up the difference.
Arclite
In case you missed the speech, here’s a link on youtube.
I was very grateful to this poster, b/c I missed the speech and this was up within an hour and was the only place that had it available for replay.
A L
What Cathyx said. The company gets free labor, the worker has their time wasted. And if they don’t participate, they get screwed.
Napoleon
@cathyx:
Stuff like not reimbursing hospitals for treating infections when a patient is readmitted, not reimbursing for drugs at a rate any higher then for a generic, etc.
In other words it is stuff to force the providers to provide services at a more economical rate, not forcing beneficiaries to accept a lower level of care.
The Other Bob
Krugman’s reaction was interesting. Last night when Obama said that everything would be paid for, I said to myself: “Krugman’s head just exploded.”
Chyron HR
Yeah, but everyone knows that Krugman is an Obotomized Obot Opologist who mindlessly worships Black Jesus. What about Obama’s secret plan to destroy
Social SecurityMedicare?huckster
@cathyx: My firm has been involved in this program for a couple of years now, and like most anything we were initially interested in the the free labor aspect of the deal, but I can say that we have hired at least one person directly from this program.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Georgians receiving unemployment benefits are matched with employers who are seeking employees and who agree to provide up to eight weeks of training. The employers do not pay the workers, who work no more than 24 hours a week; instead workers continue to receive their unemployment checks and a $240 stipend to help cover transportation, child care and other expenses.
aisce
because bloggers would never act like “bobbleheads.”
especially not ones who unleash giant emo rants diagramming an entire step-by-step shitstorm that was surely to come, only to be proven completely incorrect and reduced to meekly shrugging that the twitterz were calm.
oh, but you threw in some economist bashing and used the OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!! tag to cover all your red meat bases so that nobody would notice. because unlike the firebaggers and galtians, john cole is one cool, wise, clear-eyed truthteller.
Napoleon
@cathyx:
You are over simplifying in it in that post. It isn’t a matter of “we are simply going to pay $100 for hip replacements from now on instead of $130” it is finding where money is wasted either through ineffective treatments or similar things and refusing to pay for it. In the US we dump a much higher amount of $ per person and % of GDP into the medical system with worse outcomes then many countries. That is pretty much prima facie proof that we piss a whole lot of money down the drain in our medical system. That is a lot of low hanging fruit you could cut out of the system without effecting outcomes.
cathyx
@huckster: Your firm? Well I bet minimum wage jobs would make this a revolving door of free labor, and that’s who will use this program the most.
Chrisd
@FlipYrWhig:
I think this is correct–no way is he crossing seniors. Plus, there’s a timely article in the NYT about research from one of his health advisors purporting to show how physician fees are a major factor in health costs:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/08docs.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
No mention of malpractice costs differences across nations, of course, or med school tuition, or defensive tests, or drug costs, or private insurance overhead, or end-of-life access to the full range of medical benefits. The savings are coming out of providers.
cathyx
@Napoleon: I know that there is a lot of waste in the medical system. But if you think for one minute that hospitals will accept lower payments for anything without getting that money back somewhere else, you are naive.
Anoniminous
I could read the proposal. Use the internet to gather information on relative Provider and Management costs of other first world National Health programs. Run a comparative cost/benefit analysis of the existing system versus the proposed system. And so forth and so on.
BUT, I’ve been reading, writing, and otherwise engaged in Marketing all day¹ so I’ll say …
I heard from a co-worker whose sister’s second cousin has a daughter who heard that a friend of hers overheard in a DC bar that a policy wonk’s grandfather may have to pay more for his grandchild’s botox treatment under Obama’s plan.
How DARE he DO this!
¹ Apparently I was a serial killer in a previous life and this is my punishment.
Winston Smith
I haven’t had the stomach to visit The Daily Kos.
How many calls to primary Obama are on the Rec List?
FlipYrWhig
@Napoleon: Right. There’s a world of this kind of thing: multiple iterations of the same medical test, all reimbursed, for instance, which does nothing to help the patient, just allows money to seep out. When Bob Somerby was focusing Daily Howler on health care, he kept going back to a few key points about the crazy-high level of per-patient spending we get in the US, yet with no better health outcomes than other countries. His point was that we ought to consider this big chunk of extra money that we’re all paying for no result as “looting.” And IMHO there are ways to reduce looting, and hence reduce the amount of money flowing into the health care system, without doing anything patients would miss or that would make them suffer. We on the left shouldn’t let the looting stand, because at a certain point it becomes very clear that no small share of the government’s health-care money is being laundered through sick people into already-rich people’s already-bulging pockets.
The goal should be to cut medical spending, but not diminish health. IANA expert, but it seems there are many billions that could be saved, kept away from the medical looters — and pumped back into better projects.
sneezy
@Arclite:
It’s available at whitehouse.gov
handy
@aisce:
That’s gonna leave a mark.
huckster
@cathyx: obviously i can only speak from experience, but the person we hired was not paid minimum wage, and was hired in less than two weeks.
MarkJ
At first glance I misread the strikeout on your post to read wanking dead rather than walking dead. Did I just discover a new addition to the lexicon by mistake? I’ll let you be the judge.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MarkJ: 1/9 USMC was the Walking Dead.
FlipYrWhig
@cathyx:
But you can do that with anything. “If you think for one minute that corporations will pay higher taxes, you are naive. They’ll just pass on the costs to their customers!”
Napoleon
@cathyx:
I am anything but naive, you are simply wrong about that. They can “get the money back” by changing their practices. For example if everyone washes there hands before every contact with a patient infection rates go way down. If the US quits reimbursing for infection readmissions all they need to do is tighten up their practices.
By the way, don’t take my word for it. I don’t have a link handy but in the last week or 2 there were a series of stories that hit that Medicare cost held steady in the last year and it is being attributied to hospitals rushing to tightening their standards in advance of the HCR being phased in.
By the way, in your world exactly where do the hospitals “get it back” with higher fees? Insurance company reimbursement practices tend to shadow Medicare (and likey in the future HCR) reimbursment practices. The hospitals can’t conger the money up out of thin air, and private patients have a hard enough time paying as it is. They simply will have no choice but to find ways to save.
Napoleon
@FlipYrWhig:
That is a great way to look at it since it is essentially what is happening.
cathyx
@FlipYrWhig: True, but at least you don’t have to buy what the corporations are selling, but you do have to go to the doctor and have that medical treatment or drug. Or I guess you could just die.
Arclite
@sneezy: Yeah, unfortunately it wasn’t available there last night.
jsfox
@A L: So have you even bothered to look at the Georgia Works program? Have you investigated the outcomes? It has been in place for several years so it has a track record that you could easily investigate to see if it works.
cathyx
@Napoleon: Where do they get the money if medicare doesn’t give it to them? Why from your insurance company, of course. I’m sorry that your premiums rise annually. Someone has to pay for all these cost cutting measures.
Kola Noscopy
Meh. So Obama’s plan is way way less than it needs to be, and half of it is tax cuts, a republican obsession, instead of tax HIKES on the wealthy…so the O’s proposal is as usual half a loaf.
In other news…what’s the BJ take on the current high terror alert in NYC? More Bush/Cheney style manipulation theatre in advance of the anniversary, or legitimate threat?
ant
@Winston Smith:
kos has had to do moderating over there for a few days so far…
all the people who want everyone to vote for nader 2012 are being banned.
lol
Napoleon
@cathyx:
You really do not seem to be paying attention if you can possible say that. No one is talking about not going to the doctor and having a medical treatment that will do the patient good, what they are telling the doctor is that if he doesn’t wash his hands and you get infected he is going to have to make good on his mistake. We are not paying for it. And if that treatment is available in a cheaper alternative that is just as good he has to use the cheaper alteranative. Oh, and if you come in complaining of a skin condition the US will not reimburse him for a CAT Scan.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aisce:
OK, so now we know that either John Cole or his very large cat pissed in your big black bowl of existentially soggy cornflakes, which totally sucks because now you have to go back to the store for another box of Cereal Killer Flakes and to add insult to injury the manufacturer isn’t giving away those really cool Decepticon-who-transforms-into-a-sellout-politician toys (1 free in every box) anymore, because that promotion is over. Anything else?
Phylllis
@Anoniminous: Ok, this?:
Is art, dude. Brilliant.
FlipYrWhig
@cathyx: Yes, but you could have that medical treatment in accordance with research into what makes it most effective, fewer tests “just to be on the safe side,” a generic version of the same drug, and instructions about how to eat healthier foods. Then you the patient would be just as well-taken-care-of, and incur fewer costs in the process, while the doctors and hospitals spend less time on things that don’t treat patients or improve their lives. And no one is any more likely to die because of it.
Napoleon
@cathyx:
You seem not to be paying attention. Insurance company reimbursement practices tend to mimic Medicare. If Medicare quits, for example, for paying for infection readmitances insurance companies will follow suit, so no, they will not be making up the money from the insurance companies. It really is that simple.
cathyx
@Napoleon: You don’t seem to be following what I’m saying. The hospitals may turn you down at the door if you are paying with medicare. If they still accept you as a patient and get a lower reimbursement from you, they will charge those who have private insurance more to make up for what they are no longer getting from you.
catclub
@huckster: “obviously i can only speak from experience”
… but not long experience posting.
The last requirement for posting is actual experience.
Jade Jordan
John, this is such a reasoned post it obviously means the weekend drinking has not begun. Work on the tags though. The one you used is going to fill up soon.
I was thinking about the evolution of this site since 2008. I realized that the progressive blogosphere used to be an evolved place where people with different opinions were welcomed. Where the conversations were spirited and fact filled. Where everyone promoted their position and their candidates with zest and vigor.
We all laughed at the Freepers and Red State because they were echo chambers. Anyone who deviated from acceptable speech or opinions was quickly attacked personally and banned in short order.
John is a good dude who is not guilty of any of the above crimes. However, I realize that the progressive blogosphere is more like Freeperville than it used to be. You have to pick a site where people agree with you or endure personal attacks.
Jack and Jill is a full on OBOT STAN site (stan is a cross between a stalker and a fan); Firedoglake is an Anti-Obama site every post is “Obama is Worse Than Bush’. Balloon Juice is I don’t agree with everything he does but I think he is doing the best he can, and we have to support him, because there is no better option at this time.
This is not a bad position but disagreeing with it does not make you a bad person. As long as the disagreement does not rise to the level of personal attacks, there is not problem with attacking positions, facts, or opinions.
It will be interesting to see if things get more polarized here and everyone with a different perspective flees to an appropriate echo chamber, or if we reflect and go back to the way we were in 2008. Memories of the Way We Were……..
B W Smith
@cathyx: Do you and A L live in Georgia? Have you seen the program in action? Do you know any of the stats on employment? Look at Raven’s link. These people would be getting their unemployment check anyway. It is a VOLUNTARY program. About 50% have gotten full time jobs. Google works great for both pro and con, why not look at both sides. And Cathyx, there is no need to attack the integrity of a firm for taking advantage of program that might enhance the skills of the enrollee. Are you against it because it came from Georgia? It was created by our former Democratic DOL chief. It’s not perfect but then what is?
A Mom Anon
@Napoleon: I guess we won’t know til the legislation is finalized in written form,but could he have also been referencing Medicare Part D? My limited understanding of that is that it wasn’t funded properly,using budget tricks in the same vein as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars under Bush.
FlipYrWhig
@cathyx: You’re still envisioning “lower reimbursement” as something like across-the board reductions in how every procedure is covered, and that’s just not correct.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@B W Smith: Mike Thurmond is a great guy. I think I read there are only 19 people in the program right now.
Keith G
The thing is John, you and a number of folks here (including a certain Angry front-pager) seem to think that you can read the hearts and minds of certain folks who have legitimate concerns. What’s worse is that y’all feel compelled to act on that imagined super power and call names and belittle. That is quite infantile.
Of course the reaction to Obama’s speech has been much more positive than you could have ever imagined since some of you seem to get a tingle up your leg by imagining the worse in those with whom you disagree.
cathyx
@B W Smith: Attack the integrity of a firm taking advantage of a program??? Where did I do that. I was merely pointing out that he works at a “firm”, not a minimum wage job where employers would take advantage free labor. I have no problem with what his company did, and I never stated that I did.
Redshift
@cathyx: And you have repeatedly ignored the real world evidence that was reported a couple of weeks ago that the rate of increase of Medicare is down sharply in the past year because hospitals are starting to implement practices like avoiding unnecessary tests in advance of the ACA’s provisions that will pay them for successful outcomes rather than for individual procedures.
I have no great love for hospital billing, and open hatred for all health insurance companies I’ve ever dealt with, but the fact is that they’re designed to squeeze out profits based on what they are paid for. If we change what they are paid for to align with better outcomes, even if they’re still trying to squeeze out profits, it will change how they do it. Loudly declaring that all that will happen is that people will get screwed, contrary to initial evidence here and massive evidence elsewhere in the world, doesn’t change that.
If the proposal were just “cut Medicare assume payments across the board, and assume it will force them to be more efficient” (which would be a ‘moderate Republican’ position if it existed) then you might have a point, but nothing the administration has done in the past with Medicare fits that description, so there’s no reason to believe that it’s what they’ll do now.
Comrade Kevin
@Winston Smith: There is a grand total of zero such posts on the Rec list.
Jager
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): So its a 10 buck an hour job, that doesn’t have any effect on your unemployment. That’s not a bad deal for the unemployed or the employer. Close to a grand a month plus the unemployment check for a half time job, Walmart doesn’t pay that!
opal
@Winston Smith:
There is the usual “long time lurker/let’s start a third party” wank-fest near the top.
Not much beyond that.
steve herl
Man, that Thorazine must be some really good sh*t.
Redshift
@Kola Noscopy:
Since it was generally reported as being a distraction from the jobs speech, the alert was careful to describe it as “credible but not confirmed, and law enforcement is dealing with it,” I don’t see any evidence for manipulation.
And remember, the Bush Regime manipulated terror alerts to influence elections and stampede Congress, not just to randomly gin up fear on an anniversary (unless I’m forgetting something.)
Bill Arnold
@Kola Noscopy:
Maybe it’s because I’ve been Obotimized, but it seems like a real threat. NYC is a popular target. (The NYC major is taking it seriously.)
Nevgu
I call bullshit. I’ll bet twice bush voter Cole voted for McCain/Failin. Not because he thought McCain would do a better job. Not even Wrong Way Cole is that dumb. No it’s because ‘does this dress make my ass look fat’ Cole liked to see what new and exciting things Failin was wearing each day.
Or maybe he figured she would publish some good baking tips. Because those are exactly the sorts of things a dumbfuck twice bush voter would vote for someone for.
Mnemosyne
The weirdest part about cathyx’s argument is that it’s the exact same one that conservatives have been making for years when they claim there’s no point in the government trying to regulate or tax businesses because the businesses will only pass the cost along to customers.
When did Rush Limbaugh’s arguments become the accepted left-wing tropes?
B W Smith
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Thurmond is a great guy and was a good DOL chief. I worked with him in the JTPA job training program in the 90’s in Athens. The Georgia Works program actually grew from the on the job training component of the JTPA program. I understand there is a re-vamping of the program being pursued now which may increase enrollment. As I said the program is not perfect. It works on two levels: 1. It allows enrollees, some of whom have low skills to learn more marketable skills and 2. It keeps folks in the workforce so that Republicans can’t complain about how lazy they are.
batgirl
@Mnemosyne:
Have you been to FDL lately?
opal
@Kola Noscopy:
Are you trying to win a bet?
Mnemosyne
@Jager:
Since companies have been openly discriminating against people who have been unemployed for more than six months, I’m guessing that having any recent job on your resume would be helpful in getting a new one, even a crappy part-time job financed by the state.
Lyrebird
@Winston Smith: Actually I love this photo of Obama and Cantor that Jed Lewison highlighted over there:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/09/1014942/-Cantor-to-Obama:-Please-dont-take-it-to-the-American-people?via=blog_1
NMP
@cathyx:
I don’t know the rate of payout. On average, do providers bill the government more than they bill private insurers? That’s not snark. I sincerely want to know. I’m not in the medical industry, but if the practice is anything comparable to what the government allows for Section 8 housing reimbursements, then it’s quite excessive. A close friend of mine has decided to rent out her townhouse that she doesn’t want to sell in this market, but doesn’t want to just sit empty, she couldn’t believe what the government is allowing her to charge. She says it’s more than enough to cover the existing Mortgage on the townhouse and her new house.
Should the government not pursue cost controls that will take effect 10 plus years from now to ensure someone my age will have Medicare when they retire 25 years or more from now. Is that really an unreasonable proposition?
Cat Lady
@Jager:
But that money is tainted because it’s a bribe to companies who won’t just flat out hire an unemployed person. That person who gets the money is more useful as fuel on the firebagger’s pyre of righteousness they can climb on. Also too.
Lyrebird
@Mnemosyne:
Thank you!!!
Capri
@cathyx:
The money will have to come out of the patient’s pocket. And that’s how it should be. If you want a test/procedure that has absolutely no indication or demonstrated benefit, why should you expect anybody except yourself to pay?
An example would be annual mammograms for somebody with no known risk factors below the age of 50. If a 35-year-old wants a mammogram just so that she feels “safe” – why shouldn’t she pay the bill?
Keith G
@cathyx:
It means fewer units supplied.
cathyx
@NMP: They absolutely have different rates they charge different customers for the same service.
Emma
@cathyx: So your point is that nothing will work, so why bother to try?
My father tells this joke about a railroad man who goes up for a station master job. The last step is a test to see how he will handle an emergency. The questioner sets up a situation: At this station, trains coming from different directions switch rails. One rainy night, lightning hits a switch box, and the station master cannot make the automatic switch. What does you do?
The guy taking the test says: I’ll use the manual switch. The questioner says, it hasn’t been used in years and it’s rusted. The guy says, I’ll use the lanterns to signal the trains. No batteries, the questioner says. Every suggestion is shot down. Finally the guy says, all right I’ll call my wife. The questioner gives him a puzzled look and asks why would you do that? And the guy says so she can see the biggest train wreck in our history.
Some liberals are starting to sound like that. Nothing will work, Obama can’t make it happen, Congress won’t do it, if Congress does it you can be sure it’ll be a mess anyway, and by the way the people in those programs aren’t really getting hired, and if they did they’re not really being treated right, and if the hospitals are asked to manage their costs better they’ll make you pay for it anyway… they’re the guy with the rain cloud permanently over their head.
Fun at parties, I’m sure.
(edited to remove gratuitous firestarter)
B W Smith
@cathyx: I sincerely apologize if I mischaracterized your statement to Huckster. However, I do wish you would you do a little more research on the program before you condemn it. The program is a decent attempt to help the unemployed attain marketable skills. Since it is voluntary, I believe you can withdraw, continue your job search on your own, and still receive your full unemployment check. I haven’t been able to verify for certain but I think if you withdraw, you only give up your supplement.
cathyx
@Emma: No that’s not my philosophy. I think that healthcare should be provided for everyone, not just those who can afford it. Medicare for all. Paid by everyones taxes.
A Mom Anon
@cathyx: Ok,then why not have some of those “cuts”be a uniform and fair charge for a service? Somewhere between what the insurance companies want to pay and what the most expensive doctors want to be paid should be a fair price. This is simplifying the whole issue too much,but something like that could be in the works.
We haven’t seen the written plan yet,there’s no way to lay the whole thing out in an hour or 45 mins in a speech. Details matter,we don’t have those yet.
Emma
@cathyx: It’s mine too. Guess what? It ain’t going to happen today or even next year. What people call Obamacare is a small first step in that direction in that it helps people get health insurance, increases a family’s ability to keep an adult child needing care in insurance, and forbids companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Now, in a couple of years, maybe something larger can be pushed through.
It was the way Social Security and Medicare were done. In increments.
Do I like it? No. Do I see any possibility that there will be a sea change in the electorate and that we will have safe democratic majorities in both houses of Congress? No. So I’ll take what I can get and keep pushing.
Jager
@Mnemosyne: A friend of Mrs J, a single mother, was laid off a couple of months ago. She would jump on the Georgia program in a sec. She was making about 70k and can’t find anything close to that. I know she’d love to have an extra $240 a week as a supplement to her unemployment,it would mean gas, groceries, school things for her kids and maybe even a movie for herself.
Turgidson
@EconWatcher:
Well, that’s just about the biggest understatement in the history of the universe. Boehner only got into this business for the corruption. Fucker was passing around checks from big tobacco on just about his first day.
But I would agree that he’s not an ideological zealot to the same extent as his caucus. Just a hard-right grifter, really.
Mnemosyne
@cathyx:
And yet, from what you’ve said here, hospitals and doctors will just stop accepting Medicare from anyone and go to a cash-only basis, so how would “Medicare for all” magically solve the problem?
Judas Escargot
There’s another way to increase Medicare funding: let people under 65 purchase Medicare coverage as their insurance. Aka the “Medicare for Everyone” public option that was floated around early in the ACA debate.
Just sayin’.
cathyx
Quite simply, private insurers have to go. And the system will never get better until they are gone. The current system we have will eventually break down, and the sooner the better. And I think we will go through a lot of pain until then, but the outcome will be worth it.
Big Momm
@Chrisd: When these people say let’s cut pay to “providers”, what do they think will happen? That docs will say, oh okay, we’ll work for cheaper because we busted our asses for 10 years, during which we had to pay exorbitant tuition and work as legal slaves (ie hospital residents), just so we can put in more hours for less pay? That they’ll stop making medical errors, because your average doc loves having patients readmitted for staph infections?
Here’s what’ll happen: docs and hospitals will find excuses to limit their involvement with Medicare/Medicaid. Or they’ll ask for higher OOP expenses from the patients to make up the difference. And seniors will gladly pay more if they can because unlike younger people, they actually value their health. Those who can’t pay more… well, they’ll lose out, but it’s okay, we’re targeting providers, not seniors, right?
debbie
@ EconWatcher:
Boy, he’s been a straw in the wind. Last night on CBS after the speech, he complained about Obama’s “my way or the highway” tone and assisted the Republicans were seeking bipartisan solutions. Just now on the Newshour, he spoke of several proposals he could support (the ones for small businesses) and hoped they could all work together.
Someone must have spanked him.
goblue72
@EMMA – Thank you. The original Social Security Act was opposed by the same set of Birchers that opposed the ACA, then as now, that Social Security would cause a loss of jobs. It also did not cover farm workers, part-time workers, domestic servants, government employees, and most nurses, teachers, social workers and other occupations where women or minorities made up a significant portion of the job category. Various exclusions exempted nearly half of American workers. Lawsuits were filed challenging its constitutionality (sound familiar) – which lawsuits failed only after FDR’s court packing threat. Incremental improvements to SS were continually made, starting just a few years after its enactmetn. And it wasn’t until 1965 – 30 years later – that Medicare/Medicaid was added.
Firebaggers aren’t liberals and they aren’t progressives. They are absolutists and nihilists – everything liberalism opposes. I know which side I’m effing on.
Emma
@cathyx: Quite simply, private insurers have to go. And the system will never get better until they are gone. The current system we have will eventually break down, and the sooner the better. And I think we will go through a lot of pain until then, but the outcome will be worth it.
You know that pain “we” will be going through? That’s my parents, who rely on Medicare. My best friend, who will be able to find a decent insurance policy after years of being denied because she had a pre-existing condition. It’s human beings who are getting some relief now and won’t be getting it “until the system breaks down”.
The first thing a principle does is kill somebody. Until you’re willing to be holding the gun to other people’s heads, don’t “we” anything.
AA+ Bonds
It is pretty mind-boggling that the GOP trend is now against monetary policy itself. You’d think they’d pit themselves against biologists and climatologists, but economists? Is that really smart? Are there any intellectuals left for them to alienate?
craigie
Very very funny.
And yes, unlike any other President in my lifetime (and that’s a lot!) Obama speaking is actually interesting for me to hear. Even Clinton managed to make me cringe somehow, and the guys from the money party were just unlistenable. Even Reagan made me gag. Especially him.
Turgidson
@debbie:
I think, at long last after the debt ceiling bullshit, no one will believe Boehner when he says he wants to be bipartisan. Plus, Obama nicely preempted that shit when he pointed out that all his ideas had a Republican sponsor at some point in the not-too-distant past.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Emma:
I used to trot out another analogy during the “Pass the Damn Bill” comment threads back when the ACA was ping-ponging back and forth twixt House and Senate. Since some time has passed and a few new commentors have shown up since, I’ll throw it out again to see if anybody likes it.
In the 1890s the US has a serious economic problem. Collectively the railroads were extracting so much economic rent that it was hurting other sectors, limiting the growth of new industries and impoverishing farmers, but the railroads and their economic and political allies in what today we would call the FIRE sector were so politically powerful, especially in the US Senate, that progressive reformers despaired of being able to do anything to reduce the percentage of GDP that was being consumed by railroad tariffs (and from there going into the pockets of the wealthy). Does any of this sound familiar vs the healthcare insurance industry today?
Starting during TR’s 1st term, a bill was finally passed which started to chip away at the problem, but it was very weak tea. The Elkins Act, which became law in 1903, basically didn’t do much except to legislate that the railroads could not discriminate against certain customers while rewarding others by offering different rate schedules for the same freight haulage, depending on who you were and how much they liked you. It meant that freight haulage, an essential service without which most farms and many manufacturing businesses could not exist, had to be offered on a universal, i.e. non-discriminatory basis. Unfortunately it did nothing to contain costs. The railroads were free to continue overcharging, but they had to overcharge everyone equally for the same service. At the time the Elkins Act was widely panned as a watered-down (to the point of being nearly worthless) piece of psuedo-reform which did little to attack the real problem.
Fast forward to 1906 (during TR’s 2nd term), when the Hepburn Act was passed. Unlike the Elkins Act the Hepburn Act was focused on what we today call cost containment. It legislated the mechanisms whereby the govt could dictate rate schedules to the railroads, as a result of which costs steadily came down after passage of the act, solving the economic problem that the railroads were extracting so much rent that they were strangling the rest of the economy.
Why did the Hepburn Act pass in 1906 when similar reforms didn’t have a hope in hell of passing in 1903? The story is complicated but part of it is that (1) in the absence of an acute national crisis piecemeal legislation is easier to push against entrenched interests than wholesale changes, and (2) by leveling the playing field on rates the Elkins Act brought more players to the table with a vested interest in rate reduction when 3 years later the Hepburn Act was being negotiated, than would have been the case if the railroads could still pick and choose who they screwed and who they gave sweatheart deals to. This shifted the balance of lobbying for and against rate regulation, compared with in 1903. Also, it made it obvious that the tepid reforms in 1903 were not enough and that more had to be done.
The analogy to health care reform today seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I’m strange that way. I don’t know if we will get the health care equivalent of the Hepburn Act passed a mere 3 years after the ACA, but at least this analogy gives us a road map for how to push for it.
Turgidson
@AA+ Bonds:
Krauthammer and Kristol. lolz
General Stuck
@Big Momm:
Somewhere on the big balloon of the health care profit racket, there has to be a hole poked in it, to begin the deflating that has to happen before that racket brings the whole country down.
There are others way more knowledgeable than me in a wonk sense with health care issues, but I have some unique experience having a rare condition it took something like 20 years to get diagnosed and treated.
And what I found is a completely insane excess in specialist consults, and a primary care system doing nothing much more than making those consults as a matter of course, business course, not real health care course.
Specialists are needed, but I found after my own condition was starting to stabilize, my primary care doc at the VA just kept on sending me to specialists, for minor things that he could have easily treated, or monitored long term treatment from said specialist. And if there were problems, then see the specialist.
I finally reached my limit, as i was having doctor appointments just about every week, and sometimes two a week, for nothing much more than them saying hi, how you feel. I would say same as last time, and in ten minutes it was over. And really, all that was necessary was to have blood tests run due to anti inflamatory meds, to see if they were causing any problems with liver and shit. Something my PC doc could easily have done.
One day I just said enough of this shit, and read my PC doc something like the riot act, and it became clear to me he was just doing what the machine required to keep the most cash flowing. In this case, being VA, the cash from congress in justifying more funding. It is not really different in the private model, from similar similar personal experience with that realm.
Now I have it set up for 6 month appointments with the PC doctor who runs all the needed tests, and will send me to the specialists when needed. For problems beyond what he can deal with.
Larv
@cathyx:
Ah, the “let it burn and hope something better springs from the ashes like a phoenix” school of reform. Too bad there’s never a time when those flames don’t hurt a whole lot of innocent people.
baldheadeddork
Zandi is head economist for Moody’s Analytics, which is a separate division from the ratings part of Moody’s. His part of the company does macroeconomic and market forecasts. They aren’t involved with rating debt issues.
Zandi is a Republican, but he’s been remarkably good about not putting his political ideology ahead of his work. He’s supported stimulus spending and been the only sane voice I’ve heard from Republican economists on debt and taxes. The difference between him and, say, Greg Manikw, is huge.
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
exactly. I was about to say that but you said it earlier and better.
virag
the speech was ‘great’? not ‘good’ or ‘better than expected’ but ‘great’? really? that’s a low bar!
Cain
@cathyx:
That really depends on the employer. A position that uses such a system is not going to be something of a dead end job IMHO. But if I found someone that I think I can get good output from I might consider them for another job that I think they would be perfect for.
If it is always going to be a merry go around, then that job is not worth having as a regular career anyways I think
B W Smith
@Big Momm: So are you saying these doctors will go galt? Really? It was my understanding that many doctors earn about 50% of their income from Medicare patients. That’s a pretty serious piece of the pie to give up. I’m not anti-doctor or anti-hospital but there is some fat that can be cut and some practices that can be sharpened. My father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and given four months to live. Even though he was terminal, one of his doctors wanted him to undergo tests to determine the cause of his blurry vision. My dad respectfully declined, so that doctor tried to convince my mother to talk him into the tests. Not all doctors are saints.
Eric Lindholm
$447 billion divided by 1.9 million jobs = $235,000 per job.
Nice work if you can get it!
Cain
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Your post should be front paged when we talk about the american health care act. Well said.
Big Momm
@B W Smith: You’d rather have a doc who said “screw your dad’s quality of life, he’s going to die anyway”?
Also, I don’t think Docs will “go Galt”, that’s unethical. But will your doc take that extra half-hour to see one more patient each day? Unlikely.
President Osterity
Medicare is not insolvent. This is right wing bullshite. Obama is a big bullshite artist. Medicare for all would “save” Medicare, bottom line. I know that wouldn’t be “pragmatic.” Too bad.
nellcote
Politico on twitter last night:
@politico Like a getaway driver trying to shake a tail Obama executed a hairpin turn from deficits 2 jobs http://politi.co/onrCzb
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
SELL OUT!
What else?
Actually, you ask a good and important question..
Triassic Sands
The reaction in the immediate aftermath of the speech seemed quite positive, but today I heard almost nothing but negative reviews. Too little. Too late. Won’t create jobs. Won’t create jobs in a timely fashion. Only a tiny drop in the bucket.
Today’s reviewers were very different from those I heard last night.
I thought the people I heard today were strangely negative, although it is fair to observe that this speech is many, many months late and the relief may be too little to turn the economy around (although any additional person who gets a job or doesn’t lose one is a net positive). Still, it was bigger than most people expected and it will be interesting to see if the Republicans will say “no” to a bunch of ideas that have previously been proposed by Republicans.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
Well you know if you bend around hard enough and long enough — there is just the same damned thing..
I think that the commonality is that over the last twenty to thirty years, anti government ideas and such, have blossomed and take hold in at least two generations.
I also think, underlying this is that the Soviet system breakdown (representing so called the hard left), and cuba’s penury, has served to diminish the power of the left’s argument that their/our point of view actually delivers anything to the average joe. This reality: the corruption and lameness of the “communist” experiment — even in well of Europe — pushed the left back into carping, narrow and bitter criticizers without a model to point to.
The right faces the same demize. It is, like the “left” essentially materialist…
The Real struggle coming up will be how to reconcile meaning and the deeper needs of humanity with how to develop a growth model WITH these key and totally important constructs.
I dunno. The universe argues against it. There are many binary systems where one star robs the other of mass until it takes on so much mass that it cant survive and explodes.
The universe is complex tho. I get strange but valued comfort from the science channel and the info on our galaxy and beyond.
We are so so small but don’t know how to find our place in all of this — whether in the universe or just on this planet
B W Smith
@Big Momm: No, I wouldn’t want a doctor to say screw his quality of life. What I want is for there not to be a blatant attempt to get more money out of him and medicare. It was explained to dad, he said no. Just because he was dying, didn’t mean he was incompetent to make his own decisions. Why pressure my mom? BTW, it cleared up on its own in a few days. His attending said the blurry vision was a common reaction to the meds he was taking. I know that story is anecdotal, I only used it to show that while doctors perform an invaluable service, some of them are more interested in the money than their patients. You know just like some lawyers, some CEO’s, some bankers. They’re not a special class of people that should be shielded because they went to med school and slaved as an intern. Most of us don’t get paid what we think we’re worth.
President Osterity
Obama could easily create a job program through an executive order (see FDR). So…Obama is a big lying sack of shit. He’s a right winger thru and thru.
Big Momm
@B W Smith: Sorry, I have to disagree. Bankers and lawyers arguably produce little of value to society, merely facilitating economic transactions that occur anyway. A doctor performs an extremely valuable service. And yes, people who slave in school for ten years should be rewarded thus. But that’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of 10,000 years of human civilization.
B W Smith
@Big Momm: So what is your specialty? The only persons I have ever had to speak to me with that much hubris were a politician and my cardiologist. To my surprise after I thanked him for saving my life and acknowledged the awe of his god-like ability, he disabused me of that thought by telling that he wasn’t god-like…he was God! After all, he had killed me and brought me back to life.
El Cid
@Elie:
It would surprise the nearly total unity of the governments of South America that the left, including the support of actual soshullist and commonist parties, had pushed what at least their enemies here view as “the left” into carping, narrow and bitter criticizers without a model.
In fact, it was the Argentinian and Venezuelan models which destroyed the US & investors’ choke-hold on imposing radical, population-beating economic structuring via the IMF, World Bank, and so forth.
It’s not commonism — but these are the same sorts of democratic left movements we hired sub-fascists and genocidalists to overthrow and slaughter for the entire 20th century.
Something to bear in mind.
Even billionaire right wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera hasn’t moved to disassemble the economic achievements — even the re-nationalization of much of the Chilean ‘social security’ (pension) system — of two decades of soshulist governance.
The real independence of an entire continent from the US in the first time in its history is a major ‘world-historical’ event, one which we don’t mention that much here, since we don’t like it.
lacp
@President Osterity: Sure he could. And it would consist of a piece of paper on his desk and a posting on the WH website. Unless you figure he could also use an executive order to get Congress to authorize paying for it. This is a very dishonest argument.
Big Momm
@B W Smith: medical school ;) don’t you think your cardiologist deserves that credit, unlike your lawyer or banker?
nastybrutishntall
The NYT trying to torpedo the bill before it leaves the dock. Got a bunch of know-nothing Galtians to cry alligator tears on cue. “Boo-hoo I’m an S-Corp and I don’t want to pay my share! We plow 100% of our profits into the company!!!” Gee, that’s some “profit” if it’s 100% tax-deductible business expense. I can totally see how raising your taxes from 0% to 0% on your business expenses will totes make you give coal to all your workers instead of turkeys next year. Assholes.
B W Smith
@Big Momm: I don’t think anybody deserves to call themselves God, possibly not even the Flying Spaghetti Monster. My doctor was and is a family friend, I doubt he would say that to everyone. BTW, my husband was my lawyer and my banker is my brother, I happen to think pretty highly of both of them. I’m just a lowly social worker, hardly worth a thing on your societal value scale. Though I do think I’ve contributed to a few lives. I may not be able to stop their hearts but I have helped to mend a few broken ones. I’m sure you’ll become a fine doctor and hopefully a successful one. Just don’t do it for money, it will be clear to every patient you treat.
Big Momm
@B W Smith: Too bad about your husband and brother. If I had it my way, social workers would be paid far higher than they are today, I see enough of the good they do at the children’s hospital and free clinic where I volunteer to know that. I’m not in medicine for the money, but I feel very strongly that some jobs are worth more to society than others, and people who think that cutting payments to providers is what’ll solve the problem with Medicare/Medicaid spending are deluding themselves. Doctors aren’t dbags, but they also make enough money that they don’t need to work themselves to death taking patients that they don’t get properly reimbursed for. I don’t consider myself entitled in any way, and I’m all for higher taxes on high income earners, but singling out doctors as a cause for out of control health care costs, instead of pharmaceuticals or medical devices or patients who expect an MRI for the slightest fracture, is unfair and likely to backfire.
President Osterity
@lacp LOL. In 2010, Obama had the ability to use TARP funds to pay for any jobs program. That’s since been closed by the Repugs. He had the chance and he balked. Fuck, he could have done it as soon as he got into office–but he didn’t. You know when he had a Dim Congress. But he didn’t. He diddled while Rome burned. So…Obama IS a lying sack of shit–and my argument stands. He chose not to use the powers of the presidency because he sucks as a leader and he’s essentially a neoliberal right winger. Who’s being dishonest here?
Auldblackjack
@Eric Lindholm: yeah. but you get the highway (bridge, water system, electric grid, etc..) included for free at that price.