healthcare
mikethemadbiologist | August 29, 2009Middle class families with thousands of dollars of expenses will end up paying more:
In Massachusetts one in six people who have mandated insurance still say they cannot afford care, and 30,000 people were evicted from the state program this month because of budget cuts. Expect the same debacle nationwide.
"For someone my age who is making $40,000 a year you are required to lay out $5,000 for an insurance premium for coverage that covers nothing until you have spent $2,000 out of pocket," Himmelstein said. "You are $7,000 out of pocket before you have any coverage at all. For most people that…
gregladen | August 28, 2009First, let's get this one thing straight, because a lot of the astroturfers and even reporters and politicians are not getting it. Health care is when you get sick and the medical profession fixes you up, or some version of that. How good our health care system is becomes a matter of how good the medicine is. We in the United States and in Europe, Canada, etc. have pretty good medicine, though there are impediments to quality medicine built into our political and social systems..
Heath care INSURANCE is the system for paying for the medicine. The current discussion in the US is about…
mikethemadbiologist | August 27, 2009R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch
Ezra Klein nails it:
There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn't belong to all of us. He didn't even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to…
gregladen | August 27, 2009Zuska is writing quite a bit about the Health Care industry, from both a personal and analiticopolitical perspective. You should check out her last few posts on this topic. These are must read posts.
mikethemadbiologist | August 27, 2009There are two legitimate reasons for health insurance copayments (that is, you pay for part of a treatment or drug). The first is that copayments provide ownership: by requiring a nominal payment for those who are not indigent, it reinforces that idea that this isn't charity, but a common social obligation, on the part of those who provide and those who receive healthcare. In other words, those who use a lot of services should provide some additional support to the system. The second legitimate reason is that it discourages frivolous use. If you have a toothache, you probably shouldn't…
gregladen | August 23, 2009Betsy McCaughey (see this) has been receiving $30,000 per year from a medical supply company to be on their "board." This is of course totally unrelated to her efforts to kill health care reform under both the Clinton and Obama administrations. And Pink Unicorns can fly.
The name of the company that has been paying McCaughey off, er, I mean, paying for her I'm sure very useful service as a board member is Cantel Medical. Cantel provides a wide range of medical products. They still list McCaughey on their web site as Elizabeth McCaughey, Ph.D. Chairman - Committee to Reduce Infection…
denialism | August 22, 2009Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not dead. Instead I've been working hard as a new surgical intern and sadly not finding the time to write for the denialism blog. However, now more than ever, it seems that we need to talk about the problem of denialism.
Two major new issues for denialism have cropped up, and both are major new forms of political denialism. The first, I'll broadly describe as Obama-denialism. Obama is a muslim, Obama was not born in the US, there is a giant conspiracy involving the Hawaii Secretary of State, the Democratic Party and muslims worldwide to take over the…
mikethemadbiologist | August 22, 2009For a bunch of guys who are supposed to be politically smart, Obama's team sure is stupid. You're probably wondering what the hell the agricultural bill (the bill that gives farmers lots of subsidies) has to do with healthcare. Once upon a time, people always used to joke that Senator Bob Dole could be rolled if you were willing to screw with the ag bill.
Which brings us to healthcare.
One of the obstacles to meaningful healthcare reform in North Dakota senator Kent Conrad who is an ideological deficit hawk. Most of the time (italics mine):
While Conrad hasn't given up his deficit…
gregladen | August 21, 2009Betsy McCaughey is the wackaloon who invented the idea that the Obama Health Care Plan would involve killing off all the old people. John Stewart and she spent a little time with a draft of the plan, going over details. Below the fold. (This video will probably start automatically)
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Betsy McCaughey Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Healthcare Protests
gregladen | August 21, 2009Frank talked down to the audience!!! The previously posted video showing frank slapping down the wackaloon is here.
Note the use of the term "ideology" here. You are also seeing it more and more often in comments on this blog.
Hat Tip DMB
gregladen | August 21, 2009 Lake Elmo, MN, Aug 27
Health Care Reform Public Forum
With special guest, Congressman Michael Burgess, M.D.
Thursday, August 27th
Doors open at 1:45 pm
Forum runs 2:45 pm to 4:00 pm
Oak-Land Junior High School
820 Manning Avenue North, Lake Elmo
Along with my special guest, Congressman Michael Burgess, who practiced medicine before coming to Congress and who sits on one of the House committees with jurisdiction over the health care reform legislation, we'll be discussing the proposals that are making their way through Congress and hearing your thoughts on this important issue. I hope you'll…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2009Or something. The healthcare debate is making movement conservatives completely unhinged. Bachmann:
"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress," said Bachmann, "and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."
This is the sort of cognitive dissonance I have come to expect from movement conservatives....
gregladen | August 21, 2009You think I was over the top in my comments on Health Care Reform?
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
3 Points, Rachel!!!!
Republicans ... they're the ones who are really over the top. In fact, listen to me for a second. If YOU have considered yourself to be a Republican over recent years, it is time for you to step away from the cookie jar. Republicans can no longer be my friends. If you want to remain my friend, step away from the cookie jar. Now.
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2009
One of the frustrating things about health insurance reform is that those opposing meaningful reform are completely beholden to insurance companies. Well, there is something you can do: reward the behavior of the House Democrats who are holding the line on the public option.
Since Tuesday, ActBlue has raised over $100,000 a day in support of the pro-public option House Democrats. If you can afford it, ante up and kick in. We need to castigate those politicians who don't support the 77% of Americans who want a public option, but we also need to help those who do.
gregladen | August 20, 2009The religious right is ramping up its campaign against health care reform, even joining with the "tea party" movement to encourage conservative Christians to swamp town hall meetings. Minnesota's religious right leaders say that the health care reform package is against God's plan for health care and that Christians should go to community forums and "read them the riot act."
Jan Markell of Maple Grove-based Olive Tree Ministries called on her radio listeners to attend congressional town hall meetings in August. "Here's what you can do, your congressmen and senators are coming home for much of…
gregladen | August 20, 2009Mike Haubrich has an analysis that you should have a look at.
While I prefer a single-payer plan, I will also support a public option. Yes, this will drive some private insurers out of business. Considering the piss-poor way that they have been enacting the so-called "invisible hand" I don't feel too sorry for them. The reliance on private industry has led to a huge drag on our economy. If a raise in taxes leads to a reduction in overall costs to employers and employees, and if the covered 250 million benefit financially through reduced debt and co-pay shares for health care, and if…
gregladen | August 20, 2009Yesterday, I called Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar and expressed my support for the public option in Heath Care. If you are a Minnesotan, please do that too. Al's number is 651-221-1016. If you are not a Minnesotan, call Al anyway as he is on the Health Education Labor and Pensions committee. Use his DC number for that (202-224-5641).
Amy's number in he Twin Cities is 612-727-5223, and if you are outstate you can get the right number at this link.
While you are in the process of making calls or sending emails, you should consider contacting the members of the Senate Committee on Heatlh,…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2009In the ongoing Democratic Party effort to alienate rank-and-file Democrats, along with those non-aligned voters who supported Democrats, an weasel-dick cowardanonymous White House official expressed surprised at the support for the public option (italics mine):
"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We've gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether…
mikethemadbiologist | August 19, 2009Of course, it's not bad policy either. Anyway, Paul Krugman is exactly right on target:
If progressives had real trust in Obama's commitment to doing the right thing, the administration would have broad leeway to do deals. But the president doesn't command that kind of trust....
So progressives have their backs up over one provision in health care reform that's easy to monitor. The public option has become not so much a symbol as a signal, a test of whether Obama is really the progressive activists thought they were backing.
And the bizarre thing is that the administration doesn't seem to…