In a move that could hurt Democrats’ ability to campaign against Republicans on Medicare in next fall’s elections, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is teaming up with Republican Rep. Paul Ryan on a Medicare overhaul plan that would give beneficiaries a set amount to use toward buying private coverage or to pay for a traditional fee-for-service plan.
I took a quick look at the Wyden-Ryan proposal on Medicare (pdf).
Skip the first couple of pages, because those are primarily devoted to coyly extolling the virtues of Wyden and Ryan. Not those two specifically. People like them. Brave people. Honest people. In any event, once you’re past how great and brave and principled two certain members of Congress are, this is the (vague) proposal, and my initial thoughts:
For those currently enrolled or near retirement (55 or older), we propose no structural Medicare changes that will affect their benefits. For future seniors (those now 54 or younger,) we propose to strengthen Medicare by transitioning the current program toward a coverage-support plan with the choice of guaranteed coverage options – including traditional Medicare – on a Medicare exchange. The coverage-support value would be adjusted to provide additional support for the poor and sick, and reflect a reduced subsidy for the wealthy.
For future seniors (those now 54 or younger,) we propose to strengthen Medicare by transitioning the current program toward a coverage-support plan with the choice of guaranteed coverage options – including traditional Medicare – on a Medicare exchange. The coverage-support value would be adjusted to provide additional support for the poor and sick, and reflect a reduced subsidy for the wealthy
I had to read it a couple of times to find the section where they expect to save money.
This is it, I believe:
The Medicare Exchange would provide seniors with a competitive marketplace where they could choose a plan the same way Members of Congress do. All plans, including the traditional fee-for service option, would participate in an annual competitive bidding process to determine the dollar amount of the federal contribution seniors would use to purchase the coverage that best serves their medical needs. The second-least expensive approved plan or fee-for-service Medicare, whichever is least expensive, would establish the benchmark that determines the coverage-support amount for the plan chosen by the senior. If a senior chose a costlier plan than the benchmark, he or she would be responsible for paying the difference. Conversely, if that senior chose a plan that cost less than the benchmark, he or she would be given a rebate for the difference. Payments to plans would be risk adjusted and geographically rated. Private health plans would be required to cover at least the actuarial equivalent of the benefit package provided by fee-for-service Medicare.
On the rhetorical/political side, there’s mention after mention of “competition”, and a sappy love letter to Medicare Advantage that includes this gem:
Medicare Advantage is not without flaws.
The biggest flaw being that it didn’t save us any money. The whole point of Medicare Advantage was to introduce competition and save money, so I’d have to agree it’s “not without flaws”. That’s all Ryan’s input, I suppose.
Wyden, on the other hand, contributed some quotes from famous Democrats and many regulatory promises, like this:
This reformed Medicare program will include the toughest consumer protections in American government.
Ryan got the better part of the rhetorical/political collaboration, I must say, in terms of language. When re-reading the plan as a political pitch, rather than anything substantive, just looking at language choice, it’s 90% strident free market conservative and 10% vague assurances that vulnerable old people will be protected through regulation.
There’s a section on changing the rules on employer-provided health insurance, too, but I didn’t get to that.
Update, via TPM:
But to give you a sense for just how poisonous Wyden’s colleagues on the Hill find this alliance — both on policy merits and on political grounds, here’s a quote from a very senior Dem congressional aide.
“For starters, this is bad policy and a complete political loser,” this aide said. “On top of the terrible politics, they even admit that it dismantles Medicare but achieves no budgetary savings while doing so — the worst of all worlds. Thanks for nothing.”
Ryan and Wyden both contend that, when it’s finally drafted, their legislation will score as a cost saver, because it includes an enforcement mechanism: if Congress can’t find health care savings on its own, the plan automatically caps spending on the program and allows it to grow at a rate lower than medical inflation.
But setting the policy argument aside, the bigger point is that a lot of Dems feel like Wyden’s trespassing here, and hanging his colleagues out to dry on the politics as well.
That’s true, by the way. There’s no savings in the actual plan.
kindness
Wyden is clearly an asshole on this one. He had to know running against the Ryan plan was part of what might elect more Democrats come 2012. & he pulls a fuck me stunt like this to his own party.
Douchebag.
Mino
I am gobsmacked. Wyden/Brown was supposed to enable individual states to enact single payer, but evidently it was not flexible enough. And now this. Just who is this guy working for or is he terminally stupid.
El Tiburon
Can we agree the Democratics in Congress are nothing more than the Washington Generals to the Republican Globetrotters?
Their only purpose is to put up a nominal defense while the outcome is never really in doubt.
Add this to the new Defense Authorization bill Obama is about to sign formally legalizing indefinite detention of American citizens.
But at least we have a somewhat more rational health-insurance system.
Butch
I just hope hell is readying a room. Do these fools really believe an 84-year-old Alzheimer’s patient can make these decisions?
Jim Pharo
If strengthening Medicare is so good for consumers, why not let those 55 and older participate?
It’s hard to believe that people smart enough to operate cars, run for Congress, etc., could put this stuff together with a straight face. Perhaps they know a lot of seniors who really enjoy comparing plan details and trying to guess what diseases they might get in the future.
Embarrassing. Just embarrassing.
kay
@Mino:
Can you tell me why you thought that? I understand it was supposed to enable individual states to enact something, but single payer?
The Moar You Know
I’ve been working and paying into Medicare and Social Security since I was thirteen years old, I have the SSI statements to prove it. 32 years already (do the math, I’m 45). My final year of college was the only year I did not work.
The GOP fuckers want to take it all. If Dems plan on jumping on that bandwagon, as they are here, they can kiss my fucking vote goodbye.
gaz
Way to go dumbfucks.
This is the same old Path to Poverty plan.
The only new thing this brings to the table, is the importance of throwing wyden under the bus.
Fuckin hell. Paul Ryan is an ass who nearly everyone hates.
And his plan sucked the first time around.
What the fuck makes them think we’ll buy into the bullshit eventually if they keep trotting it out every 6 months?
Yevgraf
Having gone with shit insurance my entire working life AND being a few years under 55, I will be sorely tempted to make donations of what meager money I may be able to scrounge to Al Quaeda should this pass. I’d also be tempted to give suicide bombers maps to tony New York nightclubs where the spawn of the wealthy hang out, together with addresses of the highest end country clubs and their calendar of plutocrat society events….
gaz
god this pisses me off. infuriates me. enrages me.
makes me want to go find a rich asshole (any rich asshole) at random, and just fucking strangle them and leave them in the middle of the street.
fuck. these. assholes.
fuck their “interests”
now I wanna go kill something.
dmsilev
I can believe in Wyden’s good intentions, but man, did he fall into a coma in 1992 and just now has woken up? The scorpion will sting you halfway across the river; that’s just in its nature.
smintheus
So, a nation divided between those who get first-class benefits and those who get 4th class benefits. That should work out well…especially when the thing that puts you in one class or the other is the year you happen to have been born in.
Odd thing about Ryan’s plan, he claims it’s a great deal and yet he always insists that he’ll shield older people from having to endure it. You’d think the elderly would want to get in on such a great deal.
4tehlulz
Wouldn’t it just be easier to propose putting everyone on Blue Cross?
I bet the bill would be shorter than three pages.
Maude
@gaz:
It won’t go anywhere. Seniors know how Medicare works. When they have a doubt about a doctor’s bill, they call Medicare and have them check to see if the doc over billed.
hells littlest angel
This reformed Medicare program will include the toughest consumer protections in American government.
In other words, fuck the consumers.
Ron Wyden should step into the nearest open elevator shaft.
Joseph Nobles
“Choose a plan the same way Members of Congress do.” Of all the bullshit phrases in this debate, this is the one I really can’t stand any longer. Open the Federal Employee’s Health Benefit Plan to all Americans and give them the same “premium benefit” that Members of Congress get, and THEN you can use that phrase, politicians.
kay
See: the update at the top of the page, for the reaction.
LGRooney
I say sign off on it so either side can score some rhetorical points for having gotten something done and then start electing democrats who don’t give a shit about Medicare and want a national healthcare system.
gaz
@Maude: Yeah, I sure hope so.
Still, the fact they are even trying to pull this shit *AGAIN*…. AGAIN!
(Picturing myself wrapping my digits around Ryan’s skinny, pasty chicken-neck – and squeezing til something pops)
AAAAAARRGGGGHHH
Jesus said love your enemies – but he hadn’t considered Ryan.
Fuck.
Mino
Vermont passed it but it can’t be initiated until 2017. They are working to get that improved. Oregon has a bill HB3510, being worked on. Vermonters have been invited out there to help with the red tape.
Wyden-Brown was supposted to enable this, but there are problems. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1013277
And now one wonders if it was were designed to do so.
pete
I’m not sweating this because I think it won’t happen, but WTF Oregon? Can someone there explain what happened to Wyden &/or get him to STFU?
kay
@Mino:
Right. I’m real familiar with the Vermont law.
What I was looking for was Ron Wyden saying he wanted federal leeway for state single payer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Maude: I doubt it will go anywhere, but it gives the Republicans all the media cover they need, not just on Medicare, but on the whole issue of “bipartisanship” so dear to Villagers. The only question is whether Wyden is more of a moron than a narcissistic, self-regarding asshole, or the other way around.
gaz
Considering moving to oregon, JUST SO I CAN VOTE WYDEN OUT OF OFFICE.
Walker
Translation: We will use ice floes for cost savings.
terraformer
Damn, I thought Wyden was one of the good guys.
Shows how much I know.
gaz
@Walker: Yep. Win.
SenyorDave
Can’t fugure out whether Wyden is a sap or a traitor. I’m leaning towards traitor, with a small dash of sap, but in any event fuck him.
gaz
@SenyorDave: In the end, either one is just as bad.
kay
I don’t understand why it saves money on health care.
I understand the theory behind why the ACA saves money on health care (theoretically, allegedly, we’ll see) because we had uninsured, but this, on Medicare, is just baffling to me.
I think the only way it saves money on health care is by shifting costs to the beneficiary. Which isn’t “brave” at all, because they never say that in the proposal.
amk
Of all people to ‘associate’ with, he chose ryan ?
Rhoda
I get why Paul Ryan is doing this; there’s polling out showing if Democrats attack him over his plan that the REPUBLICAN HOUSE PASSED he is in deep shit in his very red district. So, now he’s going to say I changed my plan a bit and have the very liberal Sen. Wyden supporting me. Ignore these Democrats.
Paul Ryan is covering his ass.
My question is, what the hell is Wyden doing? Other than screwing his president and his party; and he KNOWS he’s screwing Democrats. My question is, what pissed him off? And why now?
I don’t think it means anything; it’s a fig leaf to cover the fact that Ryan and the Republican house are on record voting through vouchercare. That was voted on; Paul Ryan birthed that baby and Mitt Romney endorsed it as did every Republican candidate including Newt (who’ll probably be asked about it tonight).
Actually, now that I think about it. This is really great timing for Mitt Romney to be able to point to Ryan/Wyden and try to start flipping on this issue before the general election.
Wyden is making that possible too. I have no idea what the hell is up with that; I didn’t consider him an asshole. And this is myopic senatorial turf bullshit of the first order.
gaz
@kay: Ryan never had any interest in saving money.
He’d rather fuck over all the people that have similar experiences growing up as he did. Slam the door in their face, leave them to die, so he can get our govt to cut yet another tax-windfall for his corporate overlords.
Disgusting and vile doesn’t even come close to describing this man.
He’s the (scratch John Wayne Gacey) – Ted Bundy of American politics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m just waiting for his inevitable auto-canonization on a Sunday show, “David, I know I’ve angered some of my fellow Democrats, but this issue is just too important for partisanship”
Mino
@kay: Jeeze, you’re right. Wyden is not for single payer. What a slippery customer.
http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Wyden_Proposal
What a piece of shit.
sherparick
Well, I guess the attraction for Wyden is that doing stuff like this will get all the VSP to tell him how wonderful he is and get him invited on the morning talk shows because he has shown such “courage” and for “being so bipartisan.” It certainly is a big “FU” to the guys and gals running as Democrats for the Senate and House this year, as well as Obama.
It is hard to understand how Wyden can’t understand the political flaws and time bombs that Ryan has built into this thing, starting with the proposal in House passed CR and FICA tax cut extension to raise Medicare preminiums for those with incomes $85,000 or higher (its amazing how when one is talking income taxes raising the marginal rates on incomes of couples at $350,000 and higher will immiserate them since they are just barely middle class, but suddenly you become part of the idle rich if your income is around $80,000 or so and eligible for social security and medicare). It is a fact that although the biggest group of people in th lower income % groups is white, the popular face of those groups is Black and Brown, and any increase on those with higher preminium to pay for a subsidy on those with lower preminiums will be met by tremendous racial resentment, and which party knows how to tap into that resentments with appropriate dog whistles? (such as the Affordable Health Care Act was cutting Medicare to pay for reparations for slavery). Cutting these subsidies and “getting Government out of Medicare” will be focused group tested by Luntz and his descendants as they run Republican campaigns for the next two decades. Ryan does not run with folks like Cochrane and hedge fund managers under the banner of Ayn Rand to preserve Government subsidies for “moochers.” He is practicing “Egregioius Deceit” on both the public and Wyden, and Wyden’s ego is such that he was easy to gull.
As I posted on WaPo under VSP Lori Montgomery’s story line on this,it is not just Medicare and Medicaid costs that are the problem. It is the fact the U.S. pays 50% more than the average for developed (OECD) countries for health care and gets poorer resulst for it. The ban on using Medicare in foreign countries is not lifted. Lift that ban and encourage U.S. health care customers to go to countries with quality care and less rent seeking by guilds (Doctors and other medical professionals) and oligopolies (hospitals, medical device providers, and drug companies).
Mino
@kay: They are designing it so people self-restrict.
amk
@terraformer: What good guyz ? Didn’t al franken vote against the internet thingy recently ?
Dave
Wow…a Democratic Senator is screwing us over. Tell me again how Obama is to blame for all the myriad ills America has. What the Hell is he supposed to do when he has asshats like Wyden in his own party?
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
Why? What in this whole affair would indicate good intentions? Its not like it is hard to know what Ryan wants to do, how that would affect the country and what the end result would be. It is impossible to not know the political ramification of partnering with Ryan no matter what the sleazy sack of shit might tell you to get you on board.
What possible indicator is there that there were any good intentions in Wyden’s act? Its a move hostile to the Dems but even more hostile to the nations workers.
kay
@Mino:
I think that was at the fever-pitch point of health care anger, so the assumption was anyone on the D side wanting out of Obamacare was going Left. Perhaps not true.
kindness
So who want’s to post Wyden’s office e-mail & phone numbers so we can give him some of our ‘love’?
Joseph Nobles
@Walker: A lot more ice floes these days with global warming.
gaz
@dmsilev: i call bullshit.
no good intentions here. none.
Schlemizel
@sherparick:
Yeah, because poor people are going to buy airline tickets to Thailand to save money on their health care.
dmsilev
@Schlemizel: More from his history than anything else. Basically, I think he’s being extremely naive about Ryan and the GOP in general. Acting out of foolishness rather than malice, in other words.
burnspbesq
Now, wait a sec:
That makes Medicare a defined contribution plan, boys and girls.
Start calling your representatives today, and don’t stop calling until this abomination has a stake driven through its heart.
Sheesh.
gaz
@dmsilev: Does it matter?
Arguably, stupid is worse than malicious.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
So, does he have a handler that gets him to his office every day? Maybe helps him get dressed so that he wears the pants on the bottom & shirt on top?
How could he have been in DC the last couple of years and not understand the politics of this?
Benjamin Franklin
Payroll taxes (SS-Medicare deductions) were 2% in 1980. Today they’re 12%.
Remember when Reagan doubled the Military budget and slashed taxes?
When Dems tried to keep entitlements funded it resulted in the “promissory note’
for those funds they raided. Republicans today claim there was no ‘lockbox’ because, as you know THEY make the rules about that. But they insist the
money, since theoretical bookkeeping is like a vapor, did not really exist and therefore could not have been borrowed.
Again, Republicans and soft-headed Dems are the reason these measures must now be taken. FTA !
Maude
@Schlemizel:
He’s always been a jerk. Two faced, goes where the polls show something popular. Wonder if there’s money in it for him.
Schlemizel
@kindness:
http://wyden.senate.gov/contact/
202-224-5244
He is not going to respond to emails unless you can give him an Oregon address
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: I also get more than a faint odor of Feingoldian “Speak not to me of vulgar Politicks! I am a man of Principle” out of this. Anybody got a countdown clock on how long it takes the likes of Claire McCaskill and Mark Udall to praise their dear friend’s brave attempt to bridge the partisan divide?
gaz
@Schlemizel: I’m gonna stay away from that.
So tempted to take that info and do something horrible and illegal with it.
I need to cool off.
Posts like this are not good for me in the AM. especially this one.
KG
@dmsilev: politicians have no good intentions. They have one, single intention: get re-elected. Everything they do is based on a calculation that it will help them get re-elected (or elected to higher office).
Soonergrunt
@El Tiburon:
It doesn’t do anything of the type.
From actual people who know what they are talking about:
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/12/ndaa-conference-report/
dmsilev
@gaz: Probably doesn’t make much difference, though I’d argue that stupidity (or naiveté to be more precise) is a somewhat more curable condition than malice.
NobodySpecial
Why are you guys bitching?
Wyden has seen the writing on the wall. Senators like Nelson, Bayh, and Lincoln will never ever ever EVER lose the support of ‘reasonable Democrats’ who are ‘realistic’ unlike those fucking hippies who always WANT THINGS.
Wyden’s probably tired of getting nut punched by the conservatives on his own side of the aisle, and he knows that he can do this because you guys who bitch about hippies will come around eventually.
gaz
@dmsilev: Ignorance is curable.
Stupidity is either willful ignorance, or a congenital defect. It’s not repairable.
You simply can’t fix stupid. Wyden had a perfect opportunity to examine this plan on it’s merits the first time around. This is willful ignorance in the very least. He’s not salvageable.
KG
@Dave: bully pulpit, duh.
Quincy
By doing this now, Wyden is shrewdly getting Ryan and the GOP to commit to a more moderate plan. That way, if they sweep the 2012 elections they won’t dare backtrack and push through the original awful Ryan plan. It’s really foolproof. There is no way the Republicans would ever change their position on a health care plan that had bipartisan supporters.
Soonergrunt
@dmsilev: “I can believe in Wyden’s good intentions” assumes facts not in evidence here.
Benjamin Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
That’s the fig-leaf for Obama. Very bold, I must say.
eric
wow, i smell 2016.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So are the Democrats getting jealous that the GOP is getting all the evil LUZ? I mean Wyden being an assclown is the only rational explanation for this.
kay
There’s a way to flip this as progressive, for Wyden. It’s a stretch, but bear with me.
It’s an insurance exchange with a public option (Medicare).
Conceivably, theoretically, it could be thought of that way, and it could be rolled into the ACA.
Is it possible that’s what he’s thinking?
Benjamin Franklin
Does Obama wears a belt andsuspenders?
Look both ways before crossing a one-way street?
fuzed
Welcome to the Caldari state, peasants.
PeakVT
FSM-damned freelancing Senators.
eric
@kay: nope. It does not matter if he can sell it as a single payer and free BJ bill…it undercuts the Dem message that was going to be used to get a House majority and keep or expand a Senate majority while keeping an insane republican out of the the white house. You only do this when it makes no effing difference to your own life and lifestyle that the GOP takes over the country. I am so angry I cannot see straight.
fuzed
@Quincy: Yes, there’s no way this can backfire. (yes i get the snark, i’m just magnifying it a tiny bit)
Soonergrunt
@Dave: This about a thousand times over.
As I said last night, if you want to effect real permanent change, you need to get to 65 RELIABLE Progressives in the US Senate. I’d ammend that to include a Democratic (preferably progressive) President at the same time. But if you don’t control the Senate, you’ve got a handful of shit and nothing else.
amk
@Soonergrunt:
So it’s good or bad ?
gaz
@Quincy:
(warning, I assume no snark?)
Do have a short term memory problem? Do you not recall the several “bipartisan” engagements our legislature has been involved in? Do you live under a rock? Or on mars? They GOP will back away from this plan regardless of it’s “bipartisan” cred/what-have-you. In favor of something more draconian.
If you do not see that, you have not been paying attention. This is the new MO. Compromise is so 1990’s
if snark, than I retract the above.
Benjamin Franklin
Marcy Wheeler;
There are two explanations for why Obama backed off his veto threat on this point, then. First, we know the Administration did make a request regarding the language in the AUMF clause, though before it issued its veto threat.
As I reported last month, the big change between the original language and the Senate bill in this clause was the removal of the language exempting US citizens from indefinite detention. And that was a change made at the request of the Administration.
The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding “the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.” The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill. [my emphasis]
So maybe Obama backed off his veto threat because the final bill didn’t specifically exempt Americans from indefinite detention.
There’s the one other change made to this section between Obama’s veto threat and and his retraction of that threat today. DiFi’s cop-out language:
(e) AUTHORITIES–Nothing in this section shall be constructed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
The only thing that changed between Obama’s veto threat and his retraction of his threat–though it was depicted as a sop to civil libertarians worried about indefinite detention–is DiFi’s language.
And while DiFi’s amendment seems somewhat duplicative of the “CONSTRUCTION” language–reiterating Obama’s authority under the Afghan AUMF–it is actually more than that. To some degree, it accomplishes the same thing Mark Udall’s wrong-headed amendment did: not only reaffirm the President’s authority under the Afghan AUMF, but also the Iraq AUMF and “any other statutory or constitutional authority” regarding detention.
kay
@eric:
I agree with you on the politics. I was just wondering on the policy. It IS an insurance exchange with a public option. The thing is, Medicare already has Medicare Advantage, as a “private option”.
Comrade Dread
Here is exactly what will happen with this plan:
• US Government gives grandpa a voucher check and tells him to go buy some insurance.
• Grandpa uses his check to buy a plan that covers ‘everything’. Given grandpa’s age and the general health conditions of seniors, it is grossly underpriced.
• Insurance companies know that it is under-priced, so they raise rates slowly over the next few years.
• Grandpa ends up dipping into his retirement fund to cover the difference and complains about it to his congressman.
• Congressman waives cost controlling provisions and agrees to address this planned emergency with additional subsidies/funding for vouchers or tax cuts to insurance companies or some other form of funneling tax dollars to the companies who cuts him a huge check every two years.
• Grandpa gets just enough funding to shut him up, and continues to pay more out of pocket than he would have under Medicare.
• The government pays more to insurance companies than it would have paid to doctors under Medicare.
•Someone (most likely a Republican) decries that government has failed and proposes to end “Medicare”
Further ‘reforms’ ensue and make things worse.
SBJules
What the hell happened to Wyden? Has he been checked by a doctor lately under “his much better than medicare” congressional coverage?
KG
@Soonergrunt: as a lawyer, let me just say, the last thing you want emerging from statutes is “mush.”
On the civil side it gives lots of attorneys on both sides of the “v.” a chance to do some damage. It means lots litigation going to a jury, it means many of those going up on appeal. It means, in short, that lawyers are going to be making law in the courtrooms… and usually that means corporate parties that can foot big legal bills will win.
On the criminal side, prosecutors (and I have a lot of friends in various DA offices) almost always have an eye toward either political office or the bench. In both cases, because of decades of “ZOMG CRIME IS ON THE RISE!!1!1” the way to do that is to look tough on crime. Which means you go balls out on enforcement. And “mush” gives them room to go overboard. Unfortunately, there’s really no deterrent for overzealous prosecutors. And public defenders or private criminal defense attorneys rarely have the means to fight these things. Nor does it help that the judges they are going before use to be DA’s rather than PD’s.
eric
@kay: There is no way that Wyden can get a bill out of the House that does anything progressive as to coverage for underinsured. whatever pablum that guy throws out now, is just bs. I know you get it.
jl
There is nothing I can see, at all, that is new or innovative about this proposal. The idea of managed competition has been a policy nostrum for over 30 years. The old bromides are all in this asinine proposal: annual competition, advertised protections that miss the real problems of managed competition that runs on such a short leas of one year cost accounting, and the bottom line that should the any of the same old managed competition slogans fail (again) that the real stick will be simply capping costs and let a restriction on utilization due to inability to pay fix things. They do not mention that this way to reducing costs will involve increased death and suffering due to unprovided and delayed care, loss of continuity of care, and loss of patient compliance with treatment plans due to inability to pay.
If these two bozos are advertizing this plan as anything new, they are either ignorant fools or liars. It is the same old same old policy prescription that has failed for several decades.
Primary Wyden.
PeakVT
@kay: Maybe Wyden sees a way to help our shitty health care system a bit. But even if it’s a very good idea, 1) it’s not going to be passed in this Congress, and 2) teaming up with Ryan undercuts one of the Democrats’ major themes in the 2012 election, reducing the chance the proposal will get passed in the next Congress. So why work across the aisle? Just release a paper and let the few wonky left wing think tanks that exist in DC chew on it a bit.
gaz
@eric: me too.
seeing red right now.
Mino
@Quincy: There is no way the Republicans would ever change their position on a health care plan that had bipartisan supporters.This has to be snark. The only oath a Republican keeps is the one to Grover.
Soonergrunt
@Benjamin Franklin: So when something doesn’t mean what somebody claims it means, that’s fig leaf?
How so? How does a law that specifically does not grant the President authority (or require the President) to detain US Citizens indefinitely allow (or require) the President to detain US Citizens indefinitely? Because that was El Tiburon’s claim:
And that claim isn’t supported by the actual bill.
As the commenter at the Lawfare blog notes–nothing really changed, but they did add a layer of political grandstanding as icing on the cake.
RalfW
Two thoughts:
1) Millions of working people understand how screwed we became when retirement went from defined-benefit (pension) to defined-contribution (401(k)). All we have to do is constantly link this crock of shit to how everyone’s retirement is risky and delayed and worrisome and a mess since we moved to defined-contribution. This plan is a risky 401(k) for your health. NO thank you.
2) They seem to love exchanges. Paul Ryan does. Putting his A-OK on health insurance exchanges. If they’re good enough for this right-wing mugging of the old and/or sick, they’re good enough for Obamacare!
gaz
@jl: YES!
Primary Wyden. Is there a way we can make it painful too? like, physically? heh.
I want a cage match between him and Grayson. Like, NOW.
Quincy
@gaz
As fuzed pointed out, it was snark. I find this as preposterous as you do.
@kay Ezra Klein touched on your point in his morning post. Basically he said the health care deal that has always been out there has been Republicans get to introduce private competition for medicare dollars if Dems get a public option added to the ACA. Unfortunately, Wyden gives Republicans what they want while allowing Ryan to remain firmly committed to repealing the entire ACA. So unless he’s playing chess on a dimension we’re not even aware of, hard to see how this ends as a win for us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PeakVT: exactly. Giving Wyden every conceivable benefit of even unreasonable doubt, this is political malpractice. Wyden has given them bipartisan cover on vouchers. This will fuck with the Democrats in any and every race where Medicare, even Obamacare is an issue, from the House to Obama-Romney.
TooManyJens
@kay:
Anything’s possible, but I don’t see any indication of it. Anyway, while exchanges with “premium support” and a public option would be an improvement on health care in general in this country, it’s a big step backwards for Medicare. If one is planning to move forward by first leaping backward, one had better have a damned compelling argument for why that’s going to work.
jl
What all their moldy and stale promises miss is the following:
The annual cost and efficiency competition will not work if there is no mechanism to internalize the multiyear cost and outcome externalities that come from substandard care.
And, substandard care cannot be measured by a bunch of crap protocols, and paper shuffling needed to insure that only ‘qualified plans’ can compete.
Even qualified plans, with all sorts of protocols and promises and networks and failsafes, and whatnot will NOT provide good care when they have to scrimp to meet next year’s per member per month target costs to stay competitive. The scrimping is done by conveniently overlooking all the delayed, uncoordinated and poor adherence that comes from from lack of provider and patient compliance.
And, also too, the churning that results in poor care as private providers drop out, merge, play corporate shell games as they try (and often fail) to meet profit targets on a quarterly (for investors) and annual (for enrollment) basis.
This is garbage. Their ‘guarantees are also decades old failed bromides that have not worked in the managed competition fail parade in the under 65 population, and has not worked in Medicare Advantage.
KG
@PeakVT: Not to go 11 Dimensional on this, but I do see a reason to work across the aisle, particularly in an election year.
Let’s say this goes the way we expect it to: Ryan and Wyden put out this proposal; Teatards in the House complain that it’s not good and oppose it; Teatards in the House make it much worse; bad bill passes the House on a party line vote; goes to the Senate where the GOP filibusters it; it finally gets through cloture but looks much more like the Teatard version, Dems vote against it and it fails.
The Dems can then go out and say, “look, we tried to govern cooperatively. We tried to work with Republicans in the House and the Senate to work in a bipartisan fashion. They decided compromise meant ‘Dems give Republicans everything they want’. We couldn’t do that, because it wasn’t good for the American people.”
Now, granted, they should have more than enough evidence for this already. But it’s possible this is the thinking.
gaz
@Quincy: Well played sir.
Dry as Liz Taylor’s mummified couche. It was totally lost on me. =)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and…. The Village speaks
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/#ixzz1gcljk3LE
Benjamin Franklin
A fair comparison in the dynamics between Dems and Republicans is the relationship between sociopathic criminals and a good cop.
The good cop has principles operating around the Rule of Law. The Sociopath
exploits that ‘weakness’ and has no principle except an amoral one, ‘end justifies means’.
It’s a dilemma for the good cop. That’s why we kind of enjoy it when the cop goes ballistic on the criminals head (only in movies, of course)
‘Nice guys’ sometimes don’t get it done.
Shalimar
@dmsilev: I refuse to believe anyone with a large number of staffers acts out of political naivety. Wyden has a goal from his healthcare work, and it isn’t helping people on Medicare.
gaz
@KG: Obama has played that “we’re trying to work with them and see what happens” card over and over. It doesn’t work.
The whole thing is stupid
catclub
I think this will be a nothingburger.
There will be no bill that passes either house that reflects this proposed bill.
gaz
@catclub: True. But wyden should still pay dearly for his acquiescence to the wannabe serial murderer (Ryan)
Quincy
@gaz My apologies if I left it too subtle. I should have said, “There’s no way a Republican party led by President Romney would ever change positions on a health care plan that had bipartisan supporters.
Calouste
@kindness:
In a parliamentary system, these kinds of stunts are a good way to improve your chances to lead the party. Your own party. With one seat.
Soonergrunt
@KG: I don’t believe it’s ideal. I’m saying that the law doesn’t say what has been claimed.
If I had my druthers, we’d ship most of these guys back to their home countries and drop them on the tarmac with a bottle of water and a Hlal MRE at the airport. That would suck for many of them, but that would be their problem at that point, not ours.
And some of them simply cannot ever be let out, and that is for the simple reason that the only motivating factor in their lives is (and was before they were captured) to kill Americans.
Benjamin Franklin
@RalfW:
Actually, SS meets the definition of ‘defined benefit’.
gaz
@KG: Adding, the only good reason to “reach across the aisle” at this point, is to choke the asshole on the other side of it.
Anything else is negotiating with terrorists.
Dave
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It only gives Republicans cover if the other Democrats go with it. If you are running as a Dem and someone brings it up, you say “Senator Wyden is way off the reservation on this one. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Any Democrat worth their salt wants to protect Medicare, not dismantle it.” etc etc.
Throw Wyden under the bus. Turnabout is fair play.
Soonergrunt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If Joe Klein is for it, then by definition, patriotic Americans out in the real world outside the beltway should be against it.
Sentient Puddle
@gaz:
Really?
You need to chill the fuck out, dude.
KG
@KG: speaking of, here’s the ad I’d run if I were a Democrat:
Opening scene (with date on the screen): McConnell giving the presser saying their most important goal was seeing Obama wasn’t reelected.
Graphing out the use of filibusters. With video of various Republicans arguing that a bill doesn’t even deserve an up or down vote (probably a graphic saying something like that)
Finishing it off with something like: REPUBLICANS, PUTTING PARTY BEFORE COUNTRY; GOVERNING IN BAD FAITH
kay
@Quincy:
Again, I agree with that, but Wyden sees himself as something of a mavericky innovator, and it’s an insurance exchange with a public option, so I was just playing with the idea that he went at it from that direction.
I have no idea what he’s up to.
TooManyJens
@Dave:
Hear fucking hear.
gaz
@Sentient Puddle: I’ll chill the fuck out when our senators stop trying to murder old people and poor people for money.
sherparick
I decided to post this to dedicate to the dedicated Libertarian blogger on the WaPo web site who went on and on that Medicare was theft because what he “earned” through “his work” was taxex to pay for it. The perfect response, from an era fifty years ago, posted on Lawyers, Guns, and Money.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/12/if-you-had-any-initiative-youd-go-out-and-inherit-a-department-store
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
He teamed up with Paul Ryan to “reform Medicare.”
It doesn’t matter what his thinking is. His thinking sucks.
agrippa
Ron Wyden, of Oregon, had an ADA rating of 95 in 2008. And, a rating of 8 from the ACU. His liberal votes in 2008 were all over 70%, except for 65% on foreign.
He voted No on fiancial market bailouts and No on ‘Iran Guard is a terrorist group’.
In 2004, he won with 63%. In 2010, he won by 225,000 votes.
Why he is dealing with Ryan? No idea.
amk
@Dave: Yup. Time to whistle up the proverbial bus.
agrippa
@kay:
I have idea what Wyden thinks that he is up to. he has no business giving Ryan the time of day.
ksmiami
Call his office – wear them down. What Wyden (OR-WTF?) did was a sin against the Democratic party and he needs to pay
Mino
This has to be an industry bill that they got two suckers to sign on to. Ryan is a lackwit and it appears Wyden has a death wish.
The Moar You Know
@RalfW: I have been working a long time, but did not get my first 401k until 2003. So far it has done nothing but lose money. Not very much, because I stay on top of it, but every dime I have put in that thing becomes worth less and less with each passing year due to inflation that we supposedly aren’t experiencing.
Supposedly the stock market is supposed to go up in a never-ending arc forever and ever, amen, and that will take care of our retirements. I checked today. Seems pretty much where it was when Clinton left office eleven years ago. So much for that bright idea.
Now they want to do the same thing to both Medicare and Social Security. I think this country is both stupid and selfish enough (the over-55 split is evil genius) to do it.
Davis X. Machina
We passed the wrong health care reform bill two years ago — Obama’s (or the AEI’s) and not Wyden’s (D-Spite) — and now we’re all going to have to pay.
A hundred senators look in the mirror every morning, and in 90 of them a face is looking out that says “Good morning, Mr. (or Madame) President!”
Benjamin Franklin
Ryan is probably the Romulan’s choice for Veep.
Wyden is like the rest. He’s responding to his constituency, as he sees it.
I think he’s positioning himself to do some less than perfect good, during Obama’s 2nd term.
Just keeping his job. Until we get Publicly Financed Campaigns, nothing is going to change.
Obama ? Where do you stand on PFC? No, I mean; ‘what will you actually do
to get it?
gaz
@Quincy: Nah, your snark was great. It fooled me. Props.
Apologies for reaming you. I’m just so goddamned angry about this.
Nothing makes my blood boil more than situations like this:
You have a demonstrable sociopath, teaming up with a demonstrable moron, to leave the most vulnerable portion of our population in the street to die.
That’s what this is. And it makes me angry. Really fucking angry.
I see it as conspiracy to commit murder – for money, with evil, aided and abetted by stupid.
Few things make me more pissed than that. I think I directed some of that at you, and for that I apologize.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ksmiami: They don’t give a shit what anyone outside their constituency says, and I suspect liberal/blogosphere outrage will only fuel Wyden’s conviction that he is a noble warrior, above the vulgar partisan fray.
SenyorDave
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here’s health care policy I can believe him: When Joe Klein gets sick, wheel him off a cliff. Look at all the money the system will save.
Its an embarassing time to be a Democrat.
jl
Just by glum and unhappystance, I looked up the new OECD health statistics earlier this week. There were signs of things looking up slightly for US life expectancies and I was curious to see if the slim good news from the 2000s had continued over the last few years.
But they have not.
Let’s look at elderly men. In the 1960s, the US did pretty well, and was ranked in the upper half of developed high income economies (ranked 6 to 11, depending on specific year) out of 23 or so countries. Old style Medicare allowed the US to keep pace with other countries that had, or were developing, better health care systems. Now the US is ranked 19. The sick old men of Europe, Portugal and Denmark will soon do better for elderly men than the US. Countries like Slovenia, Poland and Estonia are making great strides in improving the life expectancy of elderly men, while the US nearly stands still in increasing life expectancy.
For elderly women, the story is even more depressing. In the 60s 65 year old women in the US has among the highest life expectancies, along with Norway, France and Sweden. During the heyday of old style Medicare the life expectancy of 65 year old women rose to be the highest out all high income developed countries. Now the US is 22 out of 23. The sick old woman of Europe, Portugal, which was a dismal place for the elderly has surpassed the US. The only country worse than the US is Denmark, but like elderly men, it is gaining ground rapidly. And as with elderly men, countries like Poland and Estonia are catching up.
The slide began in the early 1980s, when the failed managed competition, flat payment rates for hospitalizations, and other failed US economics nostrums for healthcare were introduced.
Wyden and Ryan propose to further extend this sterling record of population health, and prematurely kill more old people. Congrats to them and any suckers who will buy this mess.
The data I used can be downloaded for free in an excel spreadsheet at
OECD Health Data 2011
http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3746,en_2649_37407_12968734_1_1_1_37407,00.html
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
Oh, I’m not a big fan. I read it. It’s dishonest and self-aggrandizing. If he’s going to start with a full page on how brave they are, he has to be more straight-forward than he is in this proposal.
Ryan’s “plan” was overtly political, too. It was 80% liberal-bashing, which got no mention. The language was incredible. Pure wingnut, with a thin veneer of “seriousness”.
gaz
@Mino: Have to nit pick here.
Ryan is not stupid – he’s a sociopath. A bright one.
Wyden is the idiot here.
Quincy
@kay Got it. I think you’re probably right about his thinking, though there’s almost certainly a healthy amount of ego and VSP deficit concern thrown in as well.
What I can’t figure out is whether Wyden understands how this hurts his party politically and just doesn’t care, or whether he’s clueless about the politics. Is it possible that about half the Dem senators don’t do serious polling and honestly believe the opinions of the VSPs reflect the views of the entire electorate? Or do they just think the VSPs know what’s best for the commoners and it’s their job to bravely force it down our throats?
jl
BTW, basically the same story for life expectancy at birth, and at age 45 for the US, in case anyone is curious.
gaz
I don’t get why so many people here are concerned with divining Wyden’s motives.
Intentions don’t matter. Consequences do.
Davis X. Machina
Is getting into bed with Ryan worth it, in exchange for a public option? Not even the public option — it’s available as an option a Medicare-only exchange, at least at first, replacing the only universal-coverage program in the country, and a successful one — but hey, it’s a public option.
Gut-check time on the left, at least in certain quarters.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
As a Democrat, I should be used to other Democrats, individually and as a party, pulling stupid chronic Bipartisanship and Compromise bullshit like Wyden did here.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it or be silent about it. What the fuck, Sen. Wyden. And of course the pundits are gobbling up this shit sandwich like it was Belgian Chocolate. Great, sweet way to poison the well further, asshole. Fuck you.
gaz
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Belgian Chocolate. How Apropos.
(King Leopold springs to mind)
jl
I don’t see the advantage of opening the door for a public option if it is going to operate in a crummy managed competition environment. As far as I can tell from reading this piece of swill, public plans will be subject to payment caps along with the others, if managed competition does not produce sufficient cost savings, and it never has on a sustained basis for over 30 years now.
Benjamin Franklin
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Because there’s too much acrimony in the Capitol, already. :> )
gaz
@Benjamin Franklin: =) just some offhand perspective – legislators used to shoot each other.
Congress is actually rather tame in some respects now, considering the above. =)
Just sayin
catclub
OT: MSNBC Apology for stating facts.
Why the hell should they apologize? Was anything they said incorrect?
“MSNBC has apologized to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign for airing a segment that connected Romney’s use of the expression “Keep America American” to the Klu Klux Klan.
“During the 11AM hour on MSNBC, we reported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK in the 1920s,” Chris Matthews said on Wednesday. “It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this and showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize, we really do, to the Romney campaign.”
PeakVT
@KG: It’s possible that’s Wyden’s thinking, but there’s really no need to reinforce the intransigence of the Republicans using this particular issue. There’s plenty of other issues where that is already evident, such as the debt limit showdown.
Mino
Jesus, today has beena three-fer. And it’s not even Friday.
Charlie’s take: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/government-shutdown-6617632
Benjamin Franklin
@gaz:
I’ve heard that. But they were always gentlemanly before they shot. :>)
gaz
@Benjamin Franklin: LOL yeah, right?
Maxwell James
@kay:
I think that’s exactly right. Medicare currently operates as a price floor for similar private plans – try as they might (and they don’t), no private plan can compete with it on price.
The bill itself won’t go anywhere, but what Wyden has accomplished is getting Tea Party sweetheart Paul Ryan to sign on to a public option style plan. Democratic activists should be able to work with that if they’re smart.
Steeplejack
Wyden:
Here’s the nut of the problem: when it comes to health care, we are not consumers, we are patients. How many of you, faced with a moderately serious diagnosis, are going to think: “Hmm, but where can I get the best deal on this? I’d better do a little shopping around.” No, we all want the best care possible, money be damned. And that’s natural.
Capitalism ia a financial model, not a religion, and it doesn’t work for every situation, despite what we have had pounded into our heads for the last however many years (30-60?). Success as a capitalist business is based on manufacturing your product as “efficiently” (cheaply) as possible and attracting more and more customers. That’s how you grow the business. The American health-care industry may not actually want more sick people, but it’s set up so that inevitably it wants to do more (services for which it can charge fees) to make more money. And making the product more “efficient” (and thus more profitable) has too often come to mean denial of care or denial of insurance coverage.
In any case, most Americans–the ones lucky enough to have health insurance at all–don’t get much consumer “choice” in the matter. You get your health insurance through your job, and you get whatever plan–good or crappy–your employer has. End of story.
And here’s the final tell: if this proposal is so great, why would you exclude those 55 and older? Don’t they deserve the great new deal that everyone else is getting? No, it’s a worse deal, and they’re exempting the seniors, who they know will swarm the voting booth like honey badgers if they think they are getting screwed.
Steeplejack
@El Tiburon:
Heh. This. Unfortunately. All too often, anyway.
GregB
How about the Congress phase in their plan on themselves first and see how it works for 5 years.
Mino
@Steeplejack: And here’s the final tell: if this proposal is so great, why would you exclude those 55 and older? Don’t they deserve the great new deal that everyone else is getting? No, it’s a worse deal, and they’re exempting the seniors, who they know will swarm the voting booth like honey badgers if they think they are getting screwed.
Any senior of any age who thinks they can escape once the foot is in the door: You can’t.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
As far as I’m concerned, minus repugnant human beings like Ben Nelson and equivocating cowards like Claire McCaskill, Ron Wyden no longer has an friends in the Democratic Party. It should now be open season on burning everything he cares about to the ground. Everyone should not only feel comfortable throwing him under the bus, but they should be routinely encouraged to do so on a daily basis.
Ron Wyden should be turned into an example.
“You want to be a Very Serious Person? Fine. Go nuts. But just know that we no longer have any incentive to protect you. In fact, we have an incentive to destroy you. Now go out there and give Joe Klein a high-five.”
rikyrah
FUCK this muthafucka with a rusty pipe.
And people wonder why the President can’t get stuff done?
not with shits for Democrats like these.
Xenos
@Yevgraf:
This is what is wrong with America: too much outsourcing.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Butch:
Actually, I think it’s more a case of simply not caring…
I wonder if either Wyden or Ryan would be for privatizing ANY part of their govt-mandated socialized health care plans? At all?
I won’t be holding my breath…
Farkin’ hypocrites…
Marc
The lashing out here is crazy. We had a massive freakout over a status quo military bill; a “sellout” on taxes for millionaires; and now a back-bench Senator writing a Medicare program that will die a fiery and immediate death.
The folks here should chill out unless they want to end up like Cruella Deville.
The US is now out of Iraq, and instead of dealing with that we have the lastest online lefty outrage of the day?
Jesus.
Hill Dweller
It is impossible to overstate how politically stupid this decision is for Wyden. And for what? The actual policy is awful.
piratedan
a bit OT, but too good not to share:
http://memebase.com/2011/12/15/internet-memes-conspiracy-keanu-fair-and-biased-news/
boss bitch
So how long before Adam Green sends out e-mails and paranoid posts that Obama is going to adopt the Wyden-Ryan plan?
Want to kill the plan? get Ryan ousted in 2012.
John Weiss
WTF is Wyden thinking? I was convinced that he was on ‘our’ side. I suppose not so much.
wrb
Strange. I’ve always like Wyden.
His healthcare plan was great, much better than the one that was adopted but was ignored because of firebagger obsession with the phrase “public option” even after it no longer represented anything of substance.
He was stomped on and humiliated in the last hours of the Senate committee deliberations. Bacus refused to allow a vote, which it looked like Wyden’s plan would have won, as I recall.
Bitter?
bemused
Thom Hartmann is talking about this now. He just had on Carl Wolfson, KPOJ, Portland Progressive radio. The words “useful idiot” were said. Both agreed this is nuts. Wyden isn’t up for election until 2016 and has been for repealing ACA. Thom sarcastically asks if Wyden will run as a Republican.
TooManyJens
@boss bitch:
Somebody at the Washington Post is consulting “sources in the vicinity of the Obama Adminstration” right now.
FlipYrWhig
@Soonergrunt: I think you’re talking past each other here. For critics of the bill, the sticking point is precisely the matter of “existing” practices _not_ being undone by the new bill. (Then again, I don’t think I’d use a word like “codified”, because to me codifying something would mean spelling it out in legal language.)
So although IANAL, the dispute seems to me to be about why the new language keeps a loophole open when it might have been possible to close it. But in the blogosphere, the shortcut for saying that has been to grouse that the bill does something new, rather than (more accurately IMHO) that it doesn’t fix something old.
FlipYrWhig
@boss bitch: “Your contribution will help us recruit candidates for a possible primary challenge”. Then, much later, after everyone has forgotten, bupkes.
Zach
Paul Ryan is running for President. He’ll announce early enough to campaign over the Christmas recess in Iowa. That’s the only way I can make heads or tails of this plan It’ll get zero attention right now given (1) impending government shutdown debate and payroll tax extension debate, (2) Christmas, (3) GOP race heading into IA and NH. What it does do is give Ryan an easy out anytime anyone accuses him of proposing to Medicare and Medicaid: “Have you seen my plan? Here are all these details of my new plan; it has the support of some Democrats who have seen the light AND it’s endorsed by the WSJ!”
If Ryan announces in the next few days I bet he wins Iowa. Romney’s gotten back into Iowa too late, Gingrich has zero organization, other folks are there to split the crazy vote. Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia would be tough states for him, so it’s a blessing in disguise for him that it’s too late to register. Has the WSJ expressed support for any GOP candidate to the extent that they’re endorsing this plan that really doesn’t do anything to save businesses or the government money?
gaz
@Marc: Leaving the sick and elderly to fend for themselves (eg: suck it up and die already) = Liberal outrage.
Noted.
Fuck you, you asshole.
jl
@Marc: I am glad the US is out of Iraq. But that is another subject.
I do not care what Wyden is thinking, and do not care about hypothesizing about ornate tactical political scenarios.
This a VSP bipartisan plan, and it stinks, and people should say that it stinks. Otherwise you increase the chances of having your healthcare further stunk up.
wrb
@Zach:
you might have something there
Linda Featheringill
Bah, humbug.
Work is extraordinarily difficult today, nobody in the entire town of Washington cares about doing the right things, and there is a whole bunch of people who expect me to be grateful that they got us into Iraq.
So now “they” are messing with Medicare, threatening to raise our taxes, and seriously threatening unemployment.
I suppose next they’ll try to take Social Security away from me.
The world stinks. Bah!
gaz
Only in a society as fucked up as ours is right now, do people equate a clear moral/humanitarian issue with a partisan one.
This bill is unconscionable. The fact that people have repeatedly regarded this nasty stuff as “bold”, “honest”, or “heroic” just goes to show you how far over the high wall we are at this point.
We Are Rome.
carpeduum
The Obama Administration just rejected this plan. I can almost GUARANTEE you that you will not read about it here. All you morons will do is move on to the next “Obama/Dems sold us out” bullshit story. With fake Dem/Obama supporter Cole leading the way. I wouldn’t it put it past him to vote for a Newt Romney.
At best Cole is a Libertarian curious independent. I don’t take people like that seriously and have no respect for their opinion on anything.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, maybe Obama would veto this monstrosity.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/15/1045680/-White-House-rejects-Ryan-Wyden:-This-plan-would-end-Medicare-as-we-know-it?via=blog_1
[daily kos]
catclub
@Marc: BJ was definitely a tinder rich forest ready to explode on this.
gaz
@carpeduum: Noting that *you* are the one that is making it about Obama.
LOL
jl
@carpeduum: What the hell are you talking about? the post did not even mention Obama, or sell out. Some commenters started nattering about Obama, but so what?
Are you a troll, or just an maniacal deluded obsessive about things you imagine a BJ post says, whether is says that or not?
JGabriel
Off-topic, but …
Newt Gingrich to the Des Moines Register (via TPM):
And I like to think of you as a highway to hell.
A bridge between the public and the future — what the fuck does that even mean?
.
gaz
@Linda Featheringill: So far, so good, then.
I’d definitely have to be actively anti-Obama if the Administration did otherwise.
For me, this is a core value. Anyone that compromises on it has immediately shown their willingness to make a pact with the devil.
I fully EXPECTED he’d come out against it. If he didn’t he’d lose any support from me that I still afford him.
FlipYrWhig
@JGabriel: Does this mean we get to drive over him?
carpeduum
“Yo Kay. I’m really happy for you, I’m going to let you finish, but Obama is rejecting this plan and he has been quite consistent with his position on this”
-Kayne West
dmsilev
@JGabriel: Recent polling has suggested that we may have reached Peak Gingrich. Does this mean that a new Not-Romney will be crowned at tonight’s debate? Looking at who’s left, I think it would have to be either Senator Frothy Mixture or Ron Paul.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
WTH? Shouldn’t the Romney campaign be apologizing, as in, “We’re so sorry, we didn’t realize the history of that phrase and we will stop using it immediately”?
Once upon a time, that would have been a Romney campaign gaffe. Now apparently it’s the media’s fault if they point out the truth.
Linda Featheringill
@JGabriel: #172
The Amphibian:
Thanks but no thanks. I’ll limp along to the future without a bridge. Have a nice day.
carpeduum
@jl: Always happy to hear from my groupies. Thanks for your support.
gaz
@JGabriel:
Bridge to nowhere, indeed
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
It happened with the Sebelius announcement, too — somehow, her announcement that there was no change to the current availability of Plan B was OMG NEW RESTRICTIONS!
gaz
@carpeduum: You are proof positive as to why negative attention is so often an ineffective child rearing device.
wrb
@kay:
What you describe is what he’s been advocating for years.
As he’s worked it up in the past, it was quite good.
I’m not going to spend time chewing over this one though, until others have it well masticated.
boss bitch
@FlipYrWhig: @TooManyJens:
I see that the WH has rejected it but that won’t stop any of the grifters from asking, “why hasn’t he rejected it lately?”
gaz
@Mnemosyne: This bill is a stalking horse. That’s why it refuses to die.
It’s called poisoning the well (another commenter mentioned this)
I don’t think you can equate that with the Plan B thing, which BTW, I agree with you on. As I said on that thread I don’t give a fark, as long as a minor in my state can still get Plan B without a parent being involved.
jurassicpork
Mike Flannigan weighs in with his thoughts on the (third) end of major combat operations in Iraq. Warning: Not for the faint of heart if you follow the linkage.
fasteddie9318
Isn’t this par for the course for Wyden? He’s always struck me as a closet con.
Benjamin Franklin
@carpeduum:
Labels and Identity Politics rarely nail individuals beyond an abstraction
Concrete ideology doesn’t exist outside conservatism.
Zifnab25
@Zach:
In 2016, maybe. If he doesn’t get caught with his dick out. For now, no one is going to step into the giant flaming train-wreck that is the 2012 nomination. Maybe Gingrich will get the nod. Maybe Romney will get the nod. Paul will get run out on a rail by Florida, even if he does make it in Iowa. But this year is definitely sacrifical lamb year. It’s Clinton-redux, circa ’96. We’ll see an October Surprise and the GOP will spend the next two years in another anti-Obama jihad with whatever chamber they control in 2013. Then it’ll be all “Let’s bring Honor and Integrity to the White House” come 2016, and by then everyone will be chanting “Democrats? Republicans? What’s the difference!” And we can run some idiot political savient with rich parents and invade Iraq again by 2020.
Soonergrunt
@FlipYrWhig: I wouldn’t disagree with that, at all.
But the fact that it doesn’t really change anything is pretty huge comparing to what the original version of this legislation did.
Also too, one should never leave out the possibility that the person with whom one is arguing is ignorant of the facts, possibly willfully so, or the possibility that nothing would ever satisfy that person.
Benjamin Franklin
@gaz:
+1
Marc
@gaz:
That’s not what I said. This plan will go nowhere because it’s a bad plan. We don’t disagree. I disagree that it matters at all, or that it reflects anything other than bad judgement on one senators part.
I see people competing with one another to pile hatred on a guy who has been a consistent liberal for years. This 5 minute hate based on single issues has been getting increasingly common in the online communities.
I find it repulsive and toxic to be so willing to attack politicians so viciously, even when they’re in the wrong on that particular issue. It’s as if the entire rest of their career is irrelevant. And to top it off, the initial impressions of what they’re doing frequently turn out to be incorrect, or the motives ascribed to them turn out to be wrong.
And yet the rage addicts just move from one to the other without pausing. It’s incredibly destructive.
liberal
@Soonergrunt:
Wrong. You need 51, as long as they’re willing to discard the filibuster.
gaz
@Marc: It’s a stalking horse.
A very nasty one.
That’s why it matters.
Again, poisoning the well, so that by 2014 we are killing grandma (softly).
Adding: Anger and moral outrage are in fact, the appropriate response.
See again, “stalking horse”
Nellcote
@El Tiburon:
By now you should know this isn’t true so you’re either joking or lying. Either way, knock it off.
gaz
@Nellcote: Pretty sure Tiburon is in it for the rat-fucking, at this point.
IOW, he knows better. and he won’t stop.
carpeduum
@Benjamin Franklin: Concrete ideology? Like “drones are bad”. Like “military action in Libya” is bad? Like “Greenwald is my hero”. You mean concrete ideologies like that?
Or would you like me to increase altitude and give you the higher up “concrete ideologies” routinely expressed around this backwoods swamp of a coffee mug selling blog?
Suffern ACE
@Zach: Ryan is too late to get on the ballot in Texas, Michigan, South Carolina, Missouri, New Hampshire and had better get his act together if he wants to be on the ballot in Virginia and Vermont. How much of a write in candidate is he expected to be?
Marc
FYI Kevin Drum has a different take on what this means:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/12/turning-medicare-obamacare
Not as end-of-the-world as the sentiment here.
carpeduum
@Marc: The sentiment here is all gloom all the time. If people aren’t soiling their diapers around here they must not be selling as many coffee mugs and tshirts or whatever. I guess they figure they will follow in the foot steps of that orange site which is diaper soiling central.
gaz
@Marc: I read that, and also read the stupid white paper, and the WSJ BS.
Kevin Drum quotes part of the plan, as saying it rejects the idea that private insurers are more efficient…
And completely ignores this:
You *do* of course realize, that seniors are an extremely high risk, expensive pool, and that necessary care (including end of life care) is wildly unpredictable.
In essence, the bill on one hand says it wants it to work like medicare, but on the other hand hamstrings medicare by doing cost analysis on the senior pool. That alone would burn medicare to the ground.
The bill is shit, and kevin drum is wrong on this.
MBunge
I don’t know why people are surprised at Wyden. He’s long shown symptoms of that classic liberal malady “falling in love with one’s own wonderfullness”. We rightfully crap on the authoritarian mindset of the right, but at least they avoid this “fuck everyone on my own side to prove my purity/smarts/moral superiority” garbage.
Mike
Joel
Wyden is fairly outside of the mainstream. It will be hard for anyone to paint other Democrats with the same brush.
gaz
@Mino: He’s right though:
This.
Also, too: Doesn’t touch on the moral outrage, but the political stupidity of it all. But he’s right.
Linda Featheringill
Gotta get back to work.
You kids behave yourselves.
:-)
PeakVT
If anyone calls a Wyden office, please ask his staffers if he consulted with Reid and Durbin before issuing this plan. I’m curious as to what they might say.
ETA: The White House doesn’t like the plan.
wrb
@gaz:
I don’t read it that way, although details are too sparse to have a very meaningful debate.
I gather that under it government sets level of service and providers compete to meet that level of service most efficiently. They might pay doctors different rates, or utilize MRIs more efficiently (why do MRI only cost $90 ea in Japan?). Doesn’t sound awful on its face, for health care consumers at least.
Doctors and the heath care industry might scream though. But they need to do some screaming.
But I could be wrong, too many details are missing. But a plan that offers consumers choice, maintains standards but forces providers to compete- and to compete with a public option- would be consistent with what Wyden has proposed in the past.
However, I agree that helping rehabilitate Ryan isn’t helpful. However, saving us from being consumed by the growing healthcare monster has been so important to Wyden I could see him thinking that slaying or wounding it would justify just about anything.
gaz
@wrb:
And killing granny would be consistent with what Ryan has proposed in the past. Your point?
Frankly, I must quote TBOGG, FTW:
wrb
@gaz:
I don’t see proof that it is either granny killing or monster slaying.
I think people are too quickly het up.
gaz
@wrb: Also too
As is mentioned upthread. They’re not consumers – they’re patients. Rather large difference. See upthread as to why.
The minute you start treating health care like consumerism, rather than something like police or fire protection, you’ve set the stage for profit to allow these people to die.
This isn’t walmart. This is medicare.
Or maybe you can point to fair working model that treats patients like consumers. Yeah – I thought not. But lets go ahead and experiment. It’s not like grandma is all that important.
Carol from CO
If it saves the guvmint money, it’s going to cost more for seniors. I hate all politicians and especially so-called Democratic Party politicians who a la romney are flipping and flopping like dying fish on the banks of a river.
And I haven’t seen this mentioned on any of the other liberal blogs around, although I don’t visit them all. It’s all about lunatic cons all the time there and I’m really getting tired of it. No news about what the so-called democratic party is up to.
fasteddie9318
@wrb:
Except this doesn’t do anything of the sort or even provide a roadmap to get there. What wold save us from the healthcare monster is single-payer, and this actually takes us farther from it.
gaz
@fasteddie9318: exactly. The bill doesn’t even save any money.
wrb
@gaz:
Consumers when picking provider and plan
Switzerland, Japan, Germany
gaz
@wrb: None of those countries operate with a system anything like Ryan and Wyden propose.
(also too, Japan is wrestling with “old people problem” as well. Their solution apparently involves robots. seriously.)
Next?
TBogg
@wrb: (Poof! He appears!)
As I pointed out in my post, anytime you insert a for profit based entity into a government program YOU DON’T SAVE MONEY. If you have ever dealt with an insurance company, then you know that their mission is to put up as many roadblocks as possible and wear people down so they don’t have to pay out any money. As people grow older they become more easily confused, more so when they are sick. Handing over seniors to the insurance companies is like wounding an antelope and throwing it into the lion cage.
Raka
The plan dismantles the system that exists and dramatically expands a newer system that has so far been much more expensive and less effective, and puts the responsibility (and blame) for magically conjuring savings onto future legislators. Brilliant.
This proposal makes as much sense as solving malnutrition by establishing stiff fines for the crime of being hungry.
Zach
@Suffern ACE:
I’m not saying it’s a sure thing that he’d win, but I’d pick him if he entered today and had evidence of a large donor network organized ahead of time. Except for Michigan and New Hampshire, Romney’s going to have trouble winning all of those states. If Ryan is the alternative and it’d put him over the top, he’ll get all delegates that aren’t pledged to Mitt. Also, most (all maybe?) pre-Super-Tuesday primaries/caucuses are penalized half their delegates. They’ll probably get them back in some ceremonial way like at the 2008 DNC, but not if it determines the outcome. It’s also too late in Georgia and Florida, I believe.
@zifnab25 re: “In 2016, maybe.” Given the number of people with a feasible path to the White House, it’s hard to think that no one takes the opportunity. Ryan’s in pretty good shape since he’s got some regional support in Iowa and could win with an abbreviated campaign. There’s zero downside to announcing your candidacy today unless your angling for a position in Romney’s cabinet. If it fizzles quickly, you quickly drop out (see Thompson, Fred) in some dignified manner and take credit for shifting the debate. If you’re right of Romney, can speak extemporaneously and raise money, and don’t have too many skeletons, it’s risky to hope for a better chance in the future.
The Moar You Know
One reason is because helium is cheap. After about 2015, that won’t be the case anymore, and one consequence of that will be that the cost of MRIs should shoot up about tenfold.
Why? Well, Republicans, of course. Look into the horrible history of the National Helium Reserve to see how we’ve pissed away an irreplaceable resource, largely using it to fill up children’s balloons.
I love this country. We’ll do anything for a buck.
gaz
@The Moar You Know: needs moar robots (http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_asia/2010-07-28/375339227923.html)
kay
@wrb:
Have you read it? There is nothing in there on providers, other than a completely unsubstantiated claim that providers will have to stop taking Medicare patients if we don’t adopt the Wyden-Ryan plan.
It’s one of the things that sticks out about the proposal, how it lets health care providers completely off the hook. That’s why it struck me as cowardly.
Wyden and Ryan are “brave” enough to go after senior citizens, but they aren’t brave enough to go after the health care industry.
Mnemosyne
@gaz:
As I understand it, the problem with Japan is that they’re getting the same unbalanced demographics the rest of the world is (thanks to the Baby Boom working its way through the system) but they aren’t willing or able to replace those lost workers with immigrants the way the US and (to a lesser extent) Europe have been doing.
Yevgraf
@The Moar You Know:
Easy peasy – more will be made, and somebody will make serious coin on it.
Do you think those prices for stored helium out of the reserve are a coinkydink?
wrb
@fasteddie9318:
It is one method, and in my opinion the best. My belief back at the time was that of the viable methods it was the least likely to pass in this country and obsession with single payer/public option drained energy from quite good achievable options, such as exchanges and an optional medicare buy-in so we ended less than we could have gotten.
Anyway, with the sketch available of the Wyden/Ryan plan it possible to imagine it is REALLY many things, ranging from Ryan’s original proposal, which was awful, to Wyden’s, which was quite a bit better than what we got… and people will believe what they will believe… so I don’t see the point of staging a battle between dreams and nightmares, especially as I don’t have any big passion over this, I was just pointing out that I thought people were leaping to conclusions a mite quick.
Yevgraf
@TBogg:
Actually providing the sorts of services that have been paid for to customers sucks ass. Buncha whiny ass titty babies whimper when they’ve been ripped off.
Clearly, they hate America, Sweet Baby Jesus© and the Troops.
gaz
@Mnemosyne: I know. In the most direct sense, it was pure snark.
But here’s the thing. Traditionally, the Japanese have had an ENTIRELY different way of dealing with their senior population. Certainly, it doesn’t resemble our societal structure. We have the gung-ho nuclear family, and teh interstates, also the suburbs.
You can’t apply anything japan is doing to how we do things. That’s the truth of the above snark – it’s apples and bananas (oranges being too obvious).
In the big scheme of things, we’re better off looking at countries like Canada, and most of western europe, since they are far closer in terms of how they operate, than Japan is.
Even switzerland was at least half alright. But I think the nature of their economic engines are different enough from our own, that it raises the question as to whether we could really apply a similar model here.
Personally, I think, since Canada is basically laid out similarly, and structured similarly to us, and they also roughly based their health care system around our medicare program (but made it universal) it’s probably the safest model for us to try and emulate.
And really, naysayer idiots aside, they still do a much better job than we do, according to the WHO
jl
@kay: Yes. And contra a commenter above, this plan will create nothing like the systems in Switzerland, Japan or Germany. Or the Netherlands.
Dean Baker has a nice comment on private providers in the Wyden Ryan very very bad horrible plan:
NYT Forgot to Mention That Ryan’s Medicare Plan Raises Costs
Thursday, 15 December 2011 05:21
The NYT neglected to mention that the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly found that adopting plans providing more choice within Medicare, like the one by Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Ron Wyden touted in this article, raise rather than lower the cost of providing care. The basic problem is that private insurers are very good at cherry picking patients — better than government bureaucrats in preventing cherry picking. This means that private insurers will find ways to get patients who cost them less than the average payment, or less than the average risk-adjusted payment, for Medicare beneficiaries.
This is the reason that Medicare Advantage and its precedessor in the 90s, Medicare Plus Choice, raised the cost of Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office has also found that private insurers are less effective in controlling costs, which is why they projected that Representative Ryan’s proposal for privatizing Medicare would increase the cost of providing Medicare equivalent policies by $34 trillion over the program’s 75-year planning period.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/nyt-forgot-to-mention-that-ryans-medicare-plan-raises-costs
Midnight Marauder
@Zach:
There is exponential downside for Paul Ryan if he decides to throws his hat in the ring right now for President of the United States.
No one on that side is emerging from this unscathed.
Sly
Translation: If regulatory capture occurs and this turns into a vast boondoggle for providers and suppliers, we’ll just force recipients to take benefit cuts so that actually providing care to people won’t interfere with the boondoggle.
gaz
@wrb: Single Payer would work for us. Demonstrably so. There’s a ton of evidence. Look all over the western world.
Better to experiment with something, that so far has made things worse (every time we privatize parts of our healthcare system, it gets more expensive)… but hey – we gotta double down on fail right? Because free-market ideology! invisible hand! and stuff.
Talk about Now More Than Everism…
sheesh
wrb
@jl:
The question to which I was responding whether there was any fair working plan in which people act as consumers (exercise choice) not whether whatever would result from this sketch would end up looking like one of those particular plans.
kay
@jl:
In the proposal, they say (well, Paul Ryan probably says) that Medicare Advantage provides better care:
I’m just completely baffled by this. Medicare Advantage provides better care than Medicare (advanced! integrated!)?
There are parts of this that read like an advertisement for private health insurance, as a means to better health care.
Do they mean Medicare Advantage saves money on health care and then takes that savings in profit? Because Medicare Advantage doesn’t save the federal government any money, so who’s benefitting from all this advanced and integrated wonderfulness?
jl
@gaz:
I think the reason the Swiss have better results with patient choice and private market in health insurance and care is very specific to their healthcare system.
In Switzerland there are separate markets for basic comprehensive coverage and supplemental coverage. All providers have to offer the same basic uniform basic coverage plan, with a strictly regulated and low profit rate (in practice, private insurers have to operate as nonprofits in the basic comprehensive plan market). Any company that wants an increase in rates above a band considered reasonable by government auditors must undergo an audit, with all accounting, billing, and administrative records open to examination. The Swiss federal government has a comparative effectiveness program that determines what procedures and medications will be reimbursed, and which will not, and which will be partly reimbursed.
Compare to Wyden/Ryan.
The Swiss private insurance companies hate this system with a passion and are trying to undermine it with proposals to move more care from the regulated basic comprehensive plan to the very much less regulated supplemental plans.
But for improving population health and life expectancy, it seems to work, Switzerland moving from middle or top third of high income developed countries to very top since the 1960s. Edit: for all age groups.
jl
@wrb: OK, Sorry, I misunderstood the exchange.
gaz
in short though. for now I’ll stick with not further gutting a system (Medicare) that measurably provides better cost containment over a higher risk pool than any other “plan” that has been presented.
cmorenc
Ryan’s “bipartisan collaboration” with Wyden is exactly like Ryan looking with tender softness into the eyes of a woman he’s seducing while telling her “I’ll still respect you in the morning” when all he wants it to fuck her tonight.
I thought Wyden was one of the smart good guys, but unfortunately it appears he’s become a tragic victim of a terrible degenerative disease: EOS (Early Onset Stupidity).
gaz
@wrb: and yet you concede that those plans don’t actually exist in a system anything like the US.
Way to win the argument by moving the goal posts =)
Seriously. You’re making my bullshit allergy flare up.
wrb
@gaz:
I believe it would. It is my preference.
I think it is less likely to pass here than other things that would offer major improvements.
Perfect the enemy of the good etc.
kay
@jl:
Here’s what would be “brave” to me. If someone would say “we spend too much on health care”. Not health insurance. Health care.
But no one will say that. Because Medicare isn’t the third rail in health care. For-profit providers are.
The PPACA is much tougher on providers than this proposal. The PPACA at least sets up some mechanisms to begin to measure cost and how that relates to quality. Bang for buck, etc. This proposal completely avoids that whole discussion, and that’s the scary and politically risky part of reforming health care.
How we pay for it is the easy part, the payment mechanism, insurance, etc.
WHAT we pay for, and how MUCH we pay is the hard part. They don’t touch that.
gaz
@jl: I agree. The trillion dollar question is whether that kind of system would work here.
I don’t even have to weigh in on that though.
Because there are demonstrably better systems in place, in countries a lot like ours – that DO work. The evidence is overwhelming.
In fact, we have such a system here. It’s called medicare. It works. It’s far more efficient than private insurers. That’s a F-A-C-T.
All I want at this point is for them to leave it the hell alone, or better yet – expand it.
Failing that, come up with a plan that can work on the merits. Using actual evidence.
jl
I don’t understand the obsession with the almost meaningless slogan’single payer’.
gaz
@wrb: So now it’s some kind of perfect and impossible to achieve ideal? I asked a Canadian, and they didn’t seem to think so – (actually I didn’t, but I don’t have to).
Also, too:
Leave medicare alone, and unprivatized – or PROVE it’s inefficient.
It’s not inefficient (except for the privatized parts). There’s reams of evidence there too.
You are arguing for reforming a system that works. Demonstrably. The evidence, again, is overwhelming.
What’s your game?
You already lost on the facts.
jl
@kay: The execs themselves will say publicly (when they are forced to) and privately (freely, in low profile meetings) that the current system is unsustainable and needs to be changed. As long as nothing is done to mess with their profit rates.
gaz
Anyone who doesn’t believe that is free to start reading here:http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/
lots of delicious citations, cites CBO as well.
gaz
Anyone who doesn’t believe that is free to start reading here:http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/
lots of delicious citations, cites CBO as well.
kay
@jl:
If I were reforming health care, knowing what I know now, I would provide access to publicly-funded, non-profit, primary care to everyone. Just that. I’d do that, to start.
Community health centers for everyone! Sliding scale, on ability to pay.
Stop screwing around with insurance and get everyone access to basic, bare-bones health care. Then we can start screwing around with insurance.
jl
@gaz: thanks. that looks like a great resource.
I think the key to improving population health is to provide easy access to basic care, to get people in for surveillance to detect problems early, to establish a workforce of relatively inexpensive healthcare workers who can provide basic care. Note that even places like New Zealand and Switzerland, who are kind of stingy on docs, have lots of nurses who are trained to function as basic care providers.
Portugal, a hellhole for healthcare until the mid 70s established a national healthcare system and it rose from a total mess to merely among the worst (but getting better than the US in terms of healthy lifeyears and life expectancy) of high income developed countries. Measures of population health rose steadily, even through the economic wreckage produced by their period of rule by leftist military.
Now, Estonia is showing rapid improvement using same method, even through a brutal recession worse than in the US produced by misguided macroeconomic policies.
So, I think it is worth getting angry when bigshots propose the same failed policies that have harmed US population health for 30 years, and they claim it is some great reform.
@kay: I agree, though did not see your comment before I posted this comment.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: I think it’s one of the worst names for a good idea there has ever been. For fuck’s sake, no one who hasn’t already heard of it would ever understand who is actually paying — which is the idea’s principal advantage. It’d be like calling the income tax “money selection” or something.
gaz
@kay: maybe I’m setting the bar low, but I’d just like to see whatever we do with this based on evidence.
The “privatization is better” meme is utter crap when it comes to medicare.
I suspect the private insurers thank the stars they don’t have to deal with medicare’s risk pool. They couldn’t do it. Also historically, they WOULDN’T do it.
The only more appealing option than medicare (for these Health Care execs) is just letting people die (or better yet – keeping them sick until they run out of money) and then pocketing the dividends – by keeping them sick, I simply mean denying preventative care.
Putting profit into healthcare creates an unhealthy dynamic.
Simply put, it creates a situation where there is more money to be made in keeping people sick, or letting them die, than there is in making them well or keeping them well.
That’s the free-market for ya. Not a bad thing in many situations, but it strikes me as completely retarded that some folks can be so blind to such an obvious dynamic.
Privatization works when the motives of profit happen to coincide with the needs of people. And that does actually happen a lot. That’s why the free market basically works, as far as I can tell.
But in any situation, you’d think people would balk at the idea of using private enterprise to solve a problem where profit motive runs counter to what the enterprise is supposed to be about.
Chris
@gaz:
Is there something about being a superpower that just drives entire countries literally insane? I’ve been wondering that more and more as I watch discourse in the U.S. sink further and further into madness over the last couple of years.
FlipYrWhig
@kay: Yes, I totally agree. Make primary care a public service, like free clinics, and let everything beyond that be an arena for experimentation (if experiment we must).
Citizen Alan
@gaz:
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
gaz
@Citizen Alan: heh. ;) operative part being *used* to.
Mino
I just don’t see how ObamaCare gets implemented when one half of our population is in poverty. Where does money for premium support come from?
I realize if our current economic state continues, we are fuc*ed six different ways, but it’s beginning to look like we passed our own vouchercare.
Citizen Alan
@Mino:
This! The message that needs to be beaten like a drum is that once Medicare is only for 55 and older, the Repukes will turn on a dime and immediately start demagoguing all those greedy, selfish Baby Boomers who luxuriate in their gold-plated benefits while their children and grandchildren do without. “Welfare queen” will be replaced by “Medicare Queen” and the GOP will cut and slice at all “the waste” in Medicare until those over 55 are left dying in the same gutters as the rest of us.
gaz
@Chris: That very question has occurred to me before on more than a few occasions.
I chalk it up to the decadence of power and complacence.
Seems a part of the human condition.
There are remarkable parallels between “bread and circus” and the current GOP “debate” reality teevee show, for example.
And we’re slouching toward calligula (apologies to Yeats) – I figure Ryan may run in 2016.
Scary stuff.
kay
Flip, but it’s a class issue, community health centers.
There’s a reason Obama said 15 million times ‘you can keep your doctor!”
MOST college educated people have health insurance.
They don’t want to change the health care system. They want to change the payment mechanism. We aren’t ready to change the health care system.
Citizen Alan
@boss bitch:
Is anyone running against him? I mean an actual candidate instead of sacrificial lambs that lose by 30 points or more?
gaz
@Citizen Alan: Unfortunately, selfishness to the point of devouring one’s own is just how some people roll. A plurality of them.
And when it’s *their ASS* on the line, they’ll be like “who saw this coming?”
When they came for my children’s medicare, I said nothing…
redux.
gaz
@Citizen Alan: Nope.
Paul Ryan is FRESH! BOLD! BRAVE! dontcha know!
Caring for your parents is so 1990’s
Steeplejack
@jl:
What?! The (bloodless) left-wing military coup was in 1974, and Portugal had free elections in 1976. You don’t think some of the country’s “economic wreckage” stemmed from the 40-year right-wing dictatorship before that?
Or you can blame the government since 1976, but you can’t characterize that as military rule.
jacksmith
REALITY!!
( http://my.firedoglake.com/iflizwerequeen/2011/05/16/how-about-a-little-truth-about-what-the-majority-want-for-health-care/ )
( Gov. Peter Shumlin: Real Healthcare reform — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yFUbkVCsZ4 )
( Health Care Budget Deficit Calculator — http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.html )
( Briefing: Dean Baker on Boosting the Economy by Saving Healthcare http://t.co/fmVz8nM )
START NOW!
As you all know. Had congress passed a single-payer or government-run robust Public Option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one, our economy and jobs would have taken off like a rocket. And still will. Single-payer would be best. But a government-run robust Public Option CHOICE! that can lead to a single-payer system is the least you can accept. It’s not about competing with for-profit healthcare and for-profit health insurance. It’s about replacing it with Universal Healthcare Assurance. Everyone knows this now.
The message from the midterm elections was clear. The American people want real healthcare reform. They want that individual mandate requiring them to buy private health insurance abolished. And they want a government-run robust public option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one. And they want it now.
They want Drug re-importation, and abolishment, or strong restrictions on patents for biologic and prescription drugs. And government controlled and negotiated drug and medical cost. They want back control of their healthcare system from the Medical Industrial Complex. And they want it NOW!
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL NOT, AND MUST NOT, ALLOW AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE TO STAND WITHOUT A STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE! AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE.
For-profit health insurance is extremely unethical, and morally repugnant. It’s as morally repugnant as slavery was. And few if any decent Americans are going to allow them-self to be compelled to support such an unethical and immoral crime against humanity.
This is a matter of National and Global security. There can be NO MORE EXCUSES.
Further, we want that corrupt, undemocratic filibuster abolished. Whats the point of an election if one corrupt member of congress can block the will of the people, and any legislation the majority wants. And do it in secret. Give me a break people.
Also, unemployment healthcare benefits are critically needed. But they should be provided through the Medicare program at cost, less the 65% government premium subsidy provided now to private for profit health insurance.
Congress should stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on private for profit health insurance subsidies. Subsidies that cost the taxpayer 10x as much or more than Medicare does. Private for profit health insurance plans cost more. But provide dangerous and poorer quality patient care.
Republicans: GET RID OF THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.
Democrats: ADD A ROBUST GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION TO HEALTHCARE REFORM.
This is what the American people are shouting at you. Both parties have just enough power now to do what the American people want. GET! IT! DONE! NOW!
If congress does not abolish the individual mandate. And establish a government-run public option CHOICE! before the end of 2011. EVERY! member of congress up for reelection in 2012 will face strong progressive pro public option, and anti-individual mandate replacement candidates.
Strong progressive pro “PUBLIC OPTION” CHOICE! and anti-individual mandate volunteer candidates should begin now. And start the process of replacing any and all members of congress that obstruct, or fail to add a government-run robust PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE! before the end of 2011.
We need two or three very strong progressive volunteer candidates for every member of congress that will be up for reelection in 2012. You should be fully prepared to politically EVISCERATE EVERY INCUMBENT that fails or obstructs “THE PUBLIC OPTION”. And you should be willing to step aside and support the strongest pro “PUBLIC OPTION” candidate if the need arises.
ASSUME CONGRESS WILL FAIL and SELLOUT again. So start preparing now to CUT THEIR POLITICAL THROATS. You can always step aside if they succeed. But only if they succeed. We didn’t have much time to prepare before these past midterm elections. So the American people had to use a political shotgun approach. But by 2012 you will have a scalpel.
Congress could have passed a robust government-run public option during it’s lame duck session. They knew what the American people wanted. They already had several bills on record. And the house had already passed a public option. Departing members could have left with a truly great accomplishment. And the rest of you could have solidified your job before the 2012 elections.
President Obama, you promised the American people a strong public option available to everyone. And the American people overwhelmingly supported you for it. Maybe it just wasn’t possible before. But it is now.
Knock heads. Threaten people. Or do whatever you have to. We will support you. But get us that robust public option CHOICE! available to everyone on day one before the end of 2011. Or We The People Of The United States will make the past midterm election look like a cake walk in 2012. And it will include you.
We still have a healthcare crisis in America. With hundreds of thousands dieing needlessly every year in America. And a for profit medical industrial complex that threatens the security and health of the entire world. They have already attacked the world with H1N1 killing thousands, and injuring millions. And more attacks are planned for profit, and to feed their greed.
Spread the word people.
Progressives, prepare the American peoples scalpels. It’s time to remove some politically diseased tissues.
God Bless You my fellow human beings. I’m proud to be one of you. You did good.
See you on the battle field.
Sincerely
jacksmith – WorkingClass :-)
wrb
@kay:
applause.
Kay nails it.
jl
@Steeplejack: The military, when they had the chance, introduced some new wreckage to the economy, different from the old wreckage, but still economic wreckage. But you have a point.
The bottom line was supposed to be that population health can be improved even through times of economic hardship, if you can get the system half right. And more than twenty high income countries have got it half right while our rulers continue insist that the US get it almost all wrong.
Health care is so complex, probably impossible to get it more than half right, no matter how hard you try.
Chuck Butcher
I’ve known Ron and been an asset to him for years. He has an unfortunate tendency to think a [R] will be an honest dealer… this time. He does recognize that health care costs are not driven by just insurance and keeps trying to do something about it. I don’t know, I’ve helped pull his nads out of the fire before on one of these [R] honest dealers fiascos and really had hoped that one would be the last. Now I feel like hitting him over the head with a [R] board.
Anybody who thinks Wyden is a closet conservative is clueless, but I’ll be damned if he won’t stick his head in a political chopper now and again. Fuck Ryan should have been the first thought in his head and this probably will cause a shit storm in OR Democratic politics and I’m sure the hell not going to be there for it.
shortstop
Wyden’s spokesperson attempts to win over plan critics by repeatedly insulting them. Team Brilliant.
The Moar You Know
Hey look! It’s Bipartisan!
Wyden is the world’s dumbest fucker.
shortstop
@Chuck Butcher:
Chris
@gaz:
Ego too, I imagine.
Something about being a superpower makes you so high on yourself you can’t think straight. Which is why, for example, when faced with something like socialized health care, you ask yourself “is it American?” rather than “does it fucking work?” Or, when in [pick your international crisis], you’re more worried about “how do I avoid looking like a pussy?” than “how do I fix this?”
Chuck Butcher
@shortstop: um, politically speaking…
;-)
Benjamin Franklin
@gaz:
Holy Moly.
The thread that wouldn’t die !
Carry on………………
Odie Hugh Manatee
Wyden is my Senator and I’ve already (politely) written the idiot to tell him that although both sides need to work together, that can’t be accomplished as long as the Republicans insist on “our way or the highway”. That he is allowing the Republicans to use his name to lend them some badly needed credibility. As I told him, his giving the Republicans credibility is going to cost him his own.
That and three votes in our household come the next election.
kay
You know, I just read Wyden’s rebuttal to critics and he says the proposal doesn’t say private plans beat Medicare.
And he’s technically correct.
But why’d he put his name on something that devotes a page to how wonderful Medicare Advantage is?
Why the big sales job on Medicare Advantage?
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Thank you on behalf of someone from a much less confusing (politically) neighboring state.
Although Patty Murray on the deficit commission. That gave me pause. But it was so opaque that I don’t know what role she played.
On one hand ZOMG what the hell is she doing associating with these people)
On the other, I’m glad it was Patty Murray and not Ben Nelson. heh.
gaz
@kay: Not to mention that the same monstrosity basically seeks to reform medicare. If it’s so fucking great, why do you want to “reform” it?
Chuck Butcher
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I know…
But then you do know what the ORGOP alternative is going to look like… Wyden is a real reliable liberal politician other than these occasional… ‘brainfarts?’ This really is true – try to find a Democrat with standing to run for the Senate who’d be better than Ron if he were to quit.
There is something of a good bench building, but it is still building and do note that what had been pretty easy elections for Dems have been narrowing in the past couple elections. 2CD is a lost cause for the foreseeable future and some other districts are uncomfortably close.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz:
No prob. :) I used to live in that less confused politically state that you are in.
As messy as it is here, I prefer the confused mess that is Oregon to the shithole that I always thought Washington politics were (especially the east side of the state, where I’m from).
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Oh shit – you lived in eastern wa?
So sorry man.
I’ve been trying to petition to make it part of idaho.
I think *everybody* would be happier that way.
To me, it barely even registers as part of washington. I usually ignore it.
Although, since whole towns have been overrun by migrant mexican workers (I’m thinking Othello, for example) the place is getting better.
Cleaned up, you know.
Takin out the (white) trash. =P
fasteddie9318
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah, I realize now that he’s not a closet case, just a fucking idiot.
Just FYI, if you know Wyden’s people, somebody should see about changing this.
He’s had a number of votes against raising the estate tax exemption and against cap gains tax cuts, so I don’t know what that bolded sentence is talking about, but I’ve heard it quoted a couple of times today.
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
Wyden’s push has been that medical costs are the devil in the details and that insurance is not the be-all end-all. I get that… but fucking Ryan makes my head want to explode – even if he’s trying to co-opt the devil in this process.
Wyden is a very intelligent straight-forward guy but sometimes I think that is his downfall – he thinks the others are also, um honest, anyhow.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chuck Butcher:
That may be why Wyden is working with Ryan, to give him (Wyden) some ‘cred’ at home with the crazies (and the few of them who may vote for him). We need new blood on the Dem side here in Oregon. I think Wyden, as good as he can be at times, needs a better replacement.
While I generally like Wyden I’ve always thought of him as a weak ‘strong Democrat’ in that he seems to gravitate towards issues that are fairly safe for him to back and that make him look good.These ‘brain farts’ of his really stink. I don’t see what he will get out of this and I can see all kinds of ways that the Republicans can abuse Wyden’s support to their benefit (and to the detriment of the Democrats).
If outsiders can see it then he should be smart enough to see it too. If not then he’s been on ‘the inside’ too long and needs to get back to the outside.
fasteddie9318
@kay: Shorter Ron Wyden’s spokesperson:
I mean, seriously? Your defense of this bold solution to save Medicare from crisis is that private insurers won’t be able to compete anyway so everyone will stay on Medicare and nothing will change?
gaz
@fasteddie9318: If people wanted that kind of nonsense they could just vote for a Ron Paul clone and call it good.
What’s Wyden’s deal?
Mino
@Chuck Butcher: Why has he been against single payer in Oregon?
Benjamin Franklin
Are there any ‘strong’ Dems that haven’t been marginalized as the ‘crazies’?
Don’t want to cannibalize our own, but maybe if we cut a finger off……..
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz:
Yup, that side…lol! I grew up in Spokane and the line there is that ‘the west side libruls in the state take all of the money for themselves and leave little for us poor eastsiders!’ That and the libruls on the west side run the WHOLE STATE!!
I had to get the duck out of Fodge because I was a round peg in a square shithole. Oregon offered asylum and here I am!
:)
P.S. Don’t give the eastside to Idaho. keep it and make their lives better, even if they don’t like it! ;)
fasteddie9318
@gaz: Well, the part I bolded is mostly wrong, is my point. His record doesn’t support the argument that he wants to eliminate the estate tax or cut capital gains. But people are getting information from that site about Wyden today.
Chuck Butcher
@fasteddie9318:
I don’t have those at hand, but he has voted against things that had what he considered poison buried in them despite their outside appearances. He’s been seriously f**ed over by the {R} before and I don’t know why he can’t get the idea. I don’t believe I’m at liberty to discuss the vote that was going nuke that I was up to my neck in but it sure the hell should have been sufficient to educate. I’m not anything like anonymous so I can ask you to take my word for it – a bit anyhow.
fasteddie9318
@Chuck Butcher: I’m just saying, I don’t know who runs opencongress.org, but that sentence seems like a serious distortion of his voting record and, like I said, I’ve heard it being thrown around today.
jefft452
@smintheus: “You’d think the elderly would want to get in on such a great deal.”
And the day after some crap like this passes, every voter under 55 will happily vote to give the same deal to those over 55. Which is why the “I’m old and I vote” crowd isn’t in love with Ryan even though he swears on a stack of bibles that they wont be touched
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
for which they should be eternally grateful.
why the fuck didn’t we put safeco field et al, in spokane.
Maybe it would have shut them up. And would have eased my @&% commute.
(Thank god I work from home now)
kay
I think I know why he did it.
Congress, especially Senators, hate the Independent Payment Advisory Board because it mandates limits to providers if Congress won’t act to control costs.
Wydens plan kick those limits to beneficiaries, in the form of higher premiums.
He wants to protect providers, and he wants to retain the power that comes with Congress protecting providers.
gaz
@kay: gonna be kind of hard to retain anything when he’s out on his ass.
Penny wise and pound foolish, if you ask me. I doubt the people of Oregon will stand for this nonsense. They tend to like practical health-care solutions.
gaz
@fasteddie9318: Still trying to figure out this medicare “crises” of which you speak.
I suspect it’s a “crises” of the manufactured variety.
Medicare does pretty damned well. Better if they’d undo the damage to it that was implemented during 43’s tenure.
I call a shock doctrine play – on that utter bullshit.
Medicare crises my pasty white ass.
Chuck Butcher
@fasteddie9318:
Wyden just won re-election and I’ve pulled out of formal OR Democratic politics so I’m not going to play at butressing Wyden. I can’t do a damn thing about my 2CD and outcomes from the national Ds leave me with not the least inclination to more than vote for awhile. Democratic politics is in the state is in thanks to it having folded in a shit ton of people who’d have been GOP given anything like a rational GOP.
You can talk about winning elections, but at some moment it becomes an exercise in being the other guy’s NABA(notasbadas) and simply being a decade behind them in asshattery/plutocraticbuttlicking. That will not address the problems and does not give voters anything like a clear choice to vote on. Maybe voters would puke on something actually real in terms of left of center, but maybe the disaffected would actually vote given something they see as a real choice. I don’t know that – but it sure the hell isn’t being tried by the Party.
gaz
Oh noes! There’s a Medicare Crises!
And we’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
Orwell weeps.
gaz
@Chuck Butcher: Not voting? Such a winning strategy!
See 2010
gaz
@Chuck Butcher: Not voting? Such a winning strategy!
See 2010…
not voting. that’ll show em. I’ll make sure I’m ignored.
I never got that. Seems people that believe that think they are far more important than they are. They won’t notice that you don’t vote.
But the GOP will. Good luck with that.
kay
Gaza, he’s betting Congress will do their jobs and find savings.
But they won’t.
They never have.
They get lobbied by every provider and beneficiary and they always spend more.
Which is why we needed an IPAB in the first place.
But you see why Congress hates it.
It takes power and control from them.
His hope is Congress will act when premiums go up.
Mino
@kay: Don’t you think this probably is an industry bill they shopped around? It seems pretty slick and plausable till yu dig a bit.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz: “for which they should be eternally grateful.”
Yeah but most of them are too fucking obstinate and/or stupid to be grateful that the responsible adults in the state have kept the booze and car keys away from them.
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yep. They are all about crab-pot politics.
I don’t believe in helping people that have no interest helping themselves. It’s a waste of effort. Ergo, I have no interest in helping improve the lives of people that are perfectly willing to cut off their own noses just to spite a “darkie”
That’s pretty much why I want eastern wa to become part of idaho.
Happy to provide asylum to anyone that wants out. There’s not as much room on this side of the pass, but there’s still plenty. =)
Benjamin Franklin
In Wydens defense, he was one of the few who voted no on NDAA
Voted No
Sen. Rand Paul [R, KY]
Sen. Jeff Merkley [D, OR]
Sen. Ron Wyden [D, OR]
Sen. Mike Lee [R, UT]
Sen. Thomas Harkin [D, IA]
Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
Sen. Bernard Sanders [I, VT]
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher: Let me be clear about the Party not doing this, the national Party and even State organizations don’t put money into “lost causes.” If the Party will not be a part of pushing the dialogue then the silence will reinforce the “all the same” meme. (I hate that word) If the Party will not do it, then who the fuck will? The Media? Leave it to OWS?
Benjamin Franklin
Of course, it probably fit his polling nicely.
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee: In the interest of balance though, our nanny statism is kinda screwed up in it’s own right.
For starters: Punitive regressive tax that directly targets the poor (cigs cost nearly $10 a pack here, even on the res)
and more importantly:
If you are a single-mother/exotic dancer (read stripper), the WA dems make damn sure that you are giving blowjobs in the parking lot outside the club as well. They want these mothers to be prostitutes. See, no alcohol in the clubs, 2 foot rule and all that. You can’t make money that way here. You must whore yourself.
The above issue I’m aware of because I was with a dancer for quite some time (4 years).. I’ve always been flush so she only did that work because she liked it, and some of her friends were doing it – but for the people that need to make rent, it’s awful and oppressive. Thanks dems! Pimp those single moms!
kay
Min, I agree with Wyden as a matter of governance.
We should not need an IPAB, because that’s the job of Congress.
But we do, because Congress will never, ever cut payments to providers, and they will never, ever look at what we’re paying for.
So beneficiaries will take the hit in premium under his plan.
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
Failure in reading comprehension or just a case of pre-conceived notion? “to more than vote” is NOT won’t vote. You are regularly a … ah fill in with an appropriate word, but this is going a bit far. As for self-importance – ah, you’re pretty damned impressive yourself.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz:
I agree that Washington is simpler (politically) than Oregon, I also agree with you that there are some pretty fucked up laws and regulations in WA. I know about the no booze rule in the clubs because I worked at a plating shop on East Trent in Spokane, right next to the red light district, so I saw plenty of activity. The cops love it because they can run ‘stings’ that make them look like they are fighting crime and it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
I won’t even get into the incompetence of the Spokane County sheriffs and their city counterparts, nor their respective governments. Suffice it to say that they’re as crazy as the wingers can make it and corrupt as all fuck.
I’m glad to be rid of the place. My family once asked me if I was going to come to my senses and move back. I told them that I came to my senses right before I left and I have no intentions of going bugfuck crazy any time soon. They’re all Democrats and they like the area because they grew up there, but they know that they are outnumbered. Still, I told them that eastern WA needs people like them.
At least for as long as they can stand it. ;)
OT: New Kitteh haz arrived at 10 this morning! His name is Stewie, he’s eight weeks old and missing his Mommy right now. Actually he’s sleeping next to my wife on the couch while she’s knitting. He’s a cute little guy and pics will be up later!
Chuck Butcher
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I don’t like wet and I don’t like cities for more than a visit or even close by so I’ll stick with NE OR other than maybe some extended vacations. 2CD politics are red and I can take being outnumbered here.
Villago Delenda Est
I can’t imagine why Wyden has given that sack of neo-feudalist shit Ryan the time of day, let alone collaborating on fucking over Medicare.
He needs to be primaried, for sure. He’s lost his way.
Chuck Butcher
@Villago Delenda Est:
That would be ’16…
Chuck Butcher
@fasteddie9318:
One of the problems with these vote count analysis orgs is the same thing Kerry ran into, the devil may be in the details rather than the Title. The Title is what you get hung with, or in Kerry’s situation against before for…
gaz
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Speaking of moving away from clusterfarks…
My wife and I are seriously considering making our residence in mexico a bit more permanent.
This whole joint is fucked.
At the very least, I’d rather be somewhere where they must ban alcohol 2 days leading up to any election. I appreciate any group of citizens that still know what the true purpose of torches and pitchforks are.
The first time my wife went to Oaxaca, the grammar school teachers had taken over the streets, burned some busses, blocked all roads in and out, and kidnapped some police (they didn’t hurt them, but they had the local govt pissing themselves)
Kindergarten teachers.
Viva mexico!
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
Since you attach my name to an untruth and don’t acknowledge it when corrected, I’ll be blunt – YOU ARE A FUCKING LIAR. Maybe that fact has something to do with the drivel you frequently spout and how much regard it is worth.
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
Maybe if we can manage to fuck this place into the state of Mexico we can have people burning the streets also…
Twit
gaz
@Chuck Butcher:
I hadn’t gotten to your comment yet.
And I did misread you
I read as
My bad. And I jumped your case about it too. oops.
I lost a couple of words over the course of 300+ comments.
But as for calling me a liar, because I didn’t address you as snappily as you would have liked. DIAF, douchebag
gaz
@Chuck Butcher: That’s what I’m worried about.
Much better to live in a society that’s already fucked, than one that it is turning into one.
Have you ever spent any real time in mexico? Thought not.
tool.
gaz
also too, people were not burning the streets.
they were burning busses.
People weren’t dying.
Chuck Butcher
Like I said, fucking liar.
Twit
Please take your ass to Mexico and don’t forget to vote there.
gaz
@Chuck Butcher: I’m not lying.
Fuckwit
and have no plans to give up citizenship. I’ll still vote. If nothing else, then just to piss you off.
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
I wouldn’t cross that border to spite you, even.
But then, I won’t deliberately go to Texas again, either.
gaz
fine by me.
Keith G
Who carers? Wyden and Ryan can party like it’s 1999. Anything they do, any Medicare raping bullshit, will have to make past Obama and Obama has our back.
Right?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chuck Butcher:
You can have cold and dry, I lived that for too many years in Spokane and the area around it. Snow can be fun at times but otherwise it sucks. The winter before moving here the snow in our yard in Spokane was piled up over seven feet. Shoveling it up there was not fun! One thing I do miss is driving my winter beaters. I always chose a car that looked like an accident looking for a place to happen.
It kept most of the drivers at a distance. One fav was a ’78 Ford Fairmont that I picked up from a friend for $100.00. It had telephone pole damage to the right front fender, just inside of the headlight area. The grille was cracked, bumper askew and the hood had a telephone pole semi-circular shape on the front edge. The latch was broken so the hood was held down with a bungee cord. The carb studs were stripped out of the baseplate and the only thing holding it on was two large tywraps.
Ran like a top, cheap and nobody wanted to hit me. As much as I liked it I am glad to be rid of snow. While rain can suck, at least it’s warm, eazy to drive in and I don’t have to shovel it.
:)
Chuck Butcher
@gaz:
Here’s the deal, fuckwit; you attribute a statement to someone who hadn’t made it along with an insult and acknowledge it after being called a fucking liar and include as an appology “oops”
Fuck you very much.
Chuck Butcher
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I work outdoors (or did thanks GOPers) so no, rain is not warm and yes I can brush snow off myself. As for easy to drive in, I’ve lived around some of those rainly day drivers in my foolish past… they crash almost as much in rain as snow. (Tacoma/Seattle) edit outdoors there as well.
Worked USFS out of Pomeroy, WA at one time.
gaz
@Chuck Butcher: whatever man. I mea culpa’d. If the thread were a bit more civil at this point, it may have been a full on I’m sorry. But I’m not.
I did read back through the thread, found where I went wrong, and acknowledged the error.
And said oops.
That makes me an asshole, but not a liar.
I tire of this line of discussion at this point. The thread’s dead, and you are boring me.
So yeah, for the record, I misread you. There. Now I’ve said it twice.
I’m off the thread now. It’s getting old, seeing as how you are pretty much the only commenter left.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz:
I would consider the same (moving out of country) but I think that inflicting yet another American on some other country is kind of cruel.
;)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah, if you work outside then snow is better than rain, as long as it’s not too far below freezing IMO. I did a lot of work outdoors when I lived in Spokane and the snow wasn’t a problem when you are working hard.
The problem is driving there and back, trying to avoid people who don’t know how to drive in snow. For a good example of the average winter driver in Spokane, look up Freya street/hill on YouTube. Snow/ice, a long hill with a 6% grade and idiots behind the wheel make for great entertainment.
It’s a front row seat at the Spokane version of the Ice Capades, where they use cars instead of skates!
Benjamin Franklin
@gaz:
Nice recovery. We need more like you
Zach
@Midnight Marauder: “No one on that side is emerging from this unscathed.”
Huntsman seems to be doing just fine. Raising his profile and engaging where it helps. The only thing he’s lost is a chance to be Mitt’s veep or be in his cabinet, but it’s not like that would happen because it’d drive the Mormon conspiracy/cult folks nuts.
honus
@Benjamin Franklin:
“Payroll taxes (SS-Medicare deductions) were 2% in 1980.”
On what planet?
Payroll tax in 1980 was 8% for self-employed and 12% combined for other workers.
Reagan did increase self employment tax by about 5% though.
Medicare Plan
Extend Health has written on some of these points specifically what the plan could potentially mean to retirees.
Wyden-Ryan the devils is in the details.