Olbermann on healthcare

[Thanas]

I didn't see this posted before and it is a bit dated, but this one is one of Olbermann's best IMO.

The numbers are truly shocking.

[Wicked Pilot]

I like Olbermann and all, but in the end he's just a commentator. I offer a better trashing of the healthcare industry, Wendell Potter on Bill Moyers' show.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

[Kodiak]

I like Olbermann and all, but in the end he's just a commentator. I offer a better trashing of the healthcare industry, Wendell Potter on Bill Moyers' show.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

Thanks for the link. I've posted it on my facebook profile, since it really needs to get out there. My wife is on the phone right now with an old friend who's talking her ear off about how the Obama administration wants to kill her grandmother.

[Alyeska]

The more I read about UHC and how its progressing the US, the more infuriated I get. The US needs UHC, period. And instead we get these assholes causing significant trouble. We get the healthcare providers and insurance companies spending large sums of money just to stall UHC. Sure they would like to kill it, but even stalling it for a year, or even a month nets them absurd sums of money. And then with all this negative propaganda and outright lies being branded about, people get swayed by this bullshit.

Talking with Nitram, I get even more depressed when I look at the numbers. The US spends more money per person then any other Western country on health care. The UKs NHS is chronically underfunded. And yet for all that, it does a pretty good job. Just imagine what something like NHS could do with the ludicrous sums of money that the US throws away at healthcare.

[ray245]

Sigh, it doesn't matter if the public dislikes all the blue dog democrats in regards to their actions against healthcare reform. The only alternative people are left with is the Republicans, which hated healthcare reforms.

[Dominus Atheos]

The question now is, is Universal Health Care even worth it anymore? Everything I hear about it says it's going to be a huge clusterfuck with poor people forced to get insurance even if they can't afford it, premiums going up since now insurance companies are going to be forced to take people with pre-existing conditions (not a bad thing in and of it's self, but...) without any accompanying cost controls leading them to pass the costs on to everyone else, and on the slim chance we get a public option it's not going to be available to anyone who can get insurance through their job regardless of how much more that costs.

I'm starting to think that maybe, since the current solution is only going to make the problem worse, it would be best to abandon health care reform now and come back to it when Congress and the White House aren't filled with sissy spineless morons who care more about the special interests who bought them off, and then pass something that's actually going to fix the problem.

[Mr Bean]

It would be sure fired failure if he simply abandons it and tries to come back later, that's a win for the Insurance companies. His only way to give up without automatically losing it would be to turn 2010 into a referendum on the issue.

IE, he needs to go out say "Sorry can't do it right now, to many bought and payed for Senators" in that Obama way of his then turn on the inspiration to 10 and get as many of the bought Democrats and any Republicans he can out of the Senate, that's right I'd say he should campaign against his own party. Take Bayh the hell out, drop as much money and run as much as possible to kick his arse out in the primary. Maybe one or two others but go after Bayh in a massive way.

If he can get rid of Bayh and in a very public way punish one of his own for stabbing him in the back then he can come 2011 election year or not get Heath care reform passed. And such a gamble would make winning re election that much more likely.

Of course it's just that, a gamble. Something which you don't do unless to desperate, Politicians being what they are. But it's the kind of gamble that might get it's own chapter in history if he tried.

[Darth Wong]

The question now is, is Universal Health Care even worth it anymore?

Not if it's done by forcing people to buy insurance from private insurance companies with no public option. That's not real universal health care; that is government-sanctioned health insurance industry rent-taking.

I'm starting to think that maybe, since the current solution is only going to make the problem worse, it would be best to abandon health care reform now and come back to it when Congress and the White House aren't filled with sissy spineless morons who care more about the special interests who bought them off, and then pass something that's actually going to fix the problem.

That will never happen. Politics is a game of power and money and influence, the health industry makes hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and they can effortlessly buy enough TV time to make the American people think whatever they want them to think. Their influence will never lessen unless the American people wake the fuck up and stop mindlessly accepting whatever they're told on TV.

On the plus side, I can now reference the great 2009 US Health Care "debate" whenever some flag-waving American twit accuses me of being "anti-American" for saying that the American people are generally retarded about politics. America has really made itself look incredibly foolish during this whole affair, and that's the truth no matter how it turns out. The ease with which people lap up even the most preposterous right-wing lies is just breathtaking.

[Dominus Atheos]

It would be sure fired failure if he simply abandons it and tries to come back later, that's a win for the Insurance companies. His only way to give up without automatically losing it would be to turn 2010 into a referendum on the issue.

IE, he needs to go out say "Sorry can't do it right now, to many bought and payed for Senators" in that Obama way of his then turn on the inspiration to 10 and get as many of the bought Democrats and any Republicans he can out of the Senate, that's right I'd say he should campaign against his own party. Take Bayh the hell out, drop as much money and run as much as possible to kick his arse out in the primary. Maybe one or two others but go after Bayh in a massive way.

If he can get rid of Bayh and in a very public way punish one of his own for stabbing him in the back then he can come 2011 election year or not get Heath care reform passed. And such a gamble would make winning re election that much more likely.

Of course it's just that, a gamble. Something which you don't do unless to desperate, Politicians being what they are. But it's the kind of gamble that might get it's own chapter in history if he tried.

If Obama was a little more willing to show some backbone wouldn't the simplest way to handle the Blue Dog Conservocrats be to just to take each one, sit them in a room with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and explain to them that this legislation is the single most important priority for the Democratic party in this legislative period and that since the Democratic party gave them so much support during their last election they expect to see a little return on their investment. Explain that if they aren't going to act like Democrats when it counts the most, then Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have lost all stake in their next race either winner will oppose their agenda, and so have no reason to make anymore investments, or provide any support what so ever. That would get them marching in lock-step real quick.

[Darth Wong]

If Obama was a little more willing to show some backbone wouldn't the simplest way to handle the Blue Dog Conservocrats be to just to take each one, sit them in a room with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and explain to them that this legislation is the single most important priority for the Democratic party in this legislative period and that since the Democratic party gave them so much support during their last election they expect to see a little return on their investment. Explain that if they aren't going to act like Democrats when it counts the most, then Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have lost all stake in their next race either winner will oppose their agenda, and so have no reason to make anymore investments, or provide any support what so ever. That would get them marching in lock-step real quick.

You honestly think that would work, in the face of massive industry lobbying of both parties and rising public sentiment against the whole idea from their own idiotically brainwashed TV-watching constituents?

[Vendetta]

The US doesn't have a strong party whip system. In countries where direct donations to politicians are restricted, the party can threaten to cut reelection funding to errant members to make them vote in line.

Theoretically, the Democrats could threaten to expel Baucus and the like from the party, but unless they can mobilise public support to a degree that can't be ignored and make the blue dogs look like the villains, it would probably do more harm than good.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I hope Obama has the stones to veto the bill if it ends up just being a requirement to buy health care with no federal subsidy. I'm starting to wonder if it's possible to fix healthcare without first making political bribery illegal, because that's what campaign contributions are. Of course, when bribery is completely legal, the monied will be willing to spend billions to keep it that way.

[Guardsman Bass]

It would be sure fired failure if he simply abandons it and tries to come back later, that's a win for the Insurance companies. His only way to give up without automatically losing it would be to turn 2010 into a referendum on the issue.

IE, he needs to go out say "Sorry can't do it right now, to many bought and payed for Senators" in that Obama way of his then turn on the inspiration to 10 and get as many of the bought Democrats and any Republicans he can out of the Senate, that's right I'd say he should campaign against his own party. Take Bayh the hell out, drop as much money and run as much as possible to kick his arse out in the primary. Maybe one or two others but go after Bayh in a massive way.

If he can get rid of Bayh and in a very public way punish one of his own for stabbing him in the back then he can come 2011 election year or not get Heath care reform passed. And such a gamble would make winning re election that much more likely.

Of course it's just that, a gamble. Something which you don't do unless to desperate, Politicians being what they are. But it's the kind of gamble that might get it's own chapter in history if he tried.

If Obama was a little more willing to show some backbone wouldn't the simplest way to handle the Blue Dog Conservocrats be to just to take each one, sit them in a room with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and explain to them that this legislation is the single most important priority for the Democratic party in this legislative period and that since the Democratic party gave them so much support during their last election they expect to see a little return on their investment. Explain that if they aren't going to act like Democrats when it counts the most, then Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have lost all stake in their next race either winner will oppose their agenda, and so have no reason to make anymore investments, or provide any support what so ever. That would get them marching in lock-step real quick.

I'd argue that you need to go a little further. Remember that Blue Dog Democrats are on fundamentally tough ground - many of them have seats full of Republican voters, and they're being targeted by the RNC for 2010. If you want them to vote on something that their calculated political cowardice tells them not to, then you need to make the threat/benefits worse/better than what they're going to hear from their constituents in 2010. That means threatening primary challenges* (don't be too blunt about this, otherwise they'll use "standing up to the Democratic leadership" as an election point), offering funding, and offering small favors (certain votes on other issues, and pork later).

*This is tricky, because the threat has to be credible. Take my congressman for example, Jim Matheson (D-Utah). The man is as blue-dog as they come, in large part because in 2000 the Republican-dominated legislature decided to try and define him out of existence by splitting up his traditionally Salt Lake County-centered district into a liberal part attached to practically most of the bottom half of the state by a narrow strip of land. Yet he's never faced a serious primary challenge from any of the liberal constituents (and he has probably the most liberal constituents in the state in his district - Salt Lake City proper is heavily democratic (the city, not the suburbs)), because when it comes to push and shove, we're all too afraid of losing the only national representation that the Utah Democratic Party has.

[Dominus Atheos]

Crooks And Liars

Ten Things Obama Did Wrong on Health-Care Reform

Helen's right, damn it. And look at Gibbs' deflection: "We've had a pretty good week." Sorry, Gibby, health-care reform is slowly slipping away. Don't just stand there.

Here are my thoughts on what the White House did wrong, in no particular order:

1) Obama outsourced the legislation to Congress instead of presenting it himself and working with them to write the details. He thought he'd outsmart the GOP by doing the opposite of the Clinton plan, but instead the bill is now lost on a sea of "compromise."

2) Bipartisanship. You just can't work with ideologues who refuse to operate in good faith. They're true believers, they will never give an inch. You'd think Obama would have picked up that little lesson while studying the Clinton era.

3) Blue Dogs. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi need to come up with new strategies, since kissing their collective Blue Dog butts only inflates their already-swollen egos. Someone (Obama?) should lay down the law. Put them in the worst offices, cut their staff budgets until they cooperate. Lyndon Johnson wouldn't be holding their hands.

4) Single payer. It would have been so much easier if we'd started with it. Hell, we might even have won - and it's simple enough that most people would understand. But whatever.

5) He should have come out fighting for the public option earlier this year. Instead, he let the opponents (and the insurance companies) define the public perception. BIG rookie mistake.

6) It's one thing to meet with relevant stakeholders (insurance companies, Big Pharma, etc.) It's another thing to trust them. (See Otter, "Animal House": "You f***ed up, you trusted me!")

7) He should have included a public advocate to speak for ordinary people in every healthcare meeting. (Hell, does he even HAVE a public advocate? Because he should. I'm available.)

8 ) Obama is just not good at explaining complicated things to ordinary people, especially when he's not working from a script. He drones on and goes off on tangents. He should use more surrogates, Michelle might have done a better job. Hell, Bo might have done a better job. (I understand the political reasons he didn't ask Bill Clinton, but that may have been a fatal error. The Big Dog would have sold the hell out of the healthcare plan.)

9) The President should have made it clear from the beginning that the main focus of this bill is to make life better for Americans. All that blah blah blah about "bending the cost curve" and "controlling costs" only fed the public paranoia about rationing. (All he had to do was compare the public option to the assigned risk pool for auto insurance, and they would have gotten it.) Yes, in one of his speeches, he talked about how the bill would give everyone security, but when you're selling something, you need to stay on message. He's given us so many reasons why we should support this bill, I can't even remember them all - and I'm actually paying attention!

10) Don't negotiate from the middle, damn it. Ask for the moon and stars, and work your way toward the middle, or risk people thinking you're a corporatist tool. (Ahem.)

[Master of Ossus]

@Dominus Atheos:

I think that commentary is too charitable to Obama. I think the real problem he has in trying to selling "his" healthcare plan (to the extent it can even be considered his) is that he doesn't understand it. He doesn't get either what benefits his plan allegedly offers, nor what problems it's meant to address. As a result, he is incapable of explaining it. If you watch his national address on healthcare, his example is absurd: he cites a hypothetical in which a doctor treats someone suffering from chronic sore throats, and decides to remove their tonsils because the doctor will make more money that way. This is in no way a realistic scenario, and betrays his ignorance of the current system and its problems. But since he doesn't understand the current system, he appears to be selling a solution for problems that don't exist. It doesn't take a genius to watch that speech and say, "I don't think that's what my doctor is worried about when I go in to talk with her," and so Obama seems to be attacking strawmen and parodies, rather than the actual ills of the system, and so his healthcare reform appears to be solving rpoblems that no one has.

[Darth Wong]

Why is it so unrealistic for a doctor to want to charge patients for questionably necessary procedures, as long as he can find some way to justify them on the insurance forms or convince the patient that he needs to have it done even if he pays for it out of pocket? Are doctors the only kind of business on Earth which have no interest whatsoever in pumping up their revenue stream? If so, could you explain why this is the case?

Hypothetical scenario: a clinic purchases expensive testing equipment of some sort, because they know their clients expect them to be able to do such tests in-house, and if they farm out the test to some other clinic then they know the patient will just go to that other clinic instead, thus losing them a customer. Now they have this piece of expensive equipment which they only really need to use for every 50th patient at best, but they need to pay for it somehow, so they convince every 10th patient that he needs to pay for these expensive extra tests (even if he must pay out of pocket), "just to be safe". How is this unrealistic? Isn't this exactly how the US managed to build up its current glut of MRI machines, which they're so desperate to create business for that they actually advertise them across the border, complete with discount coupons?

[Master of Ossus]

Why is it so unrealistic for a doctor to want to charge patients for questionably necessary procedures, as long as he can find some way to justify them on the insurance forms or convince the patient that he needs to have it done even if he pays for it out of pocket? Are doctors the only kind of business on Earth which have no interest whatsoever in pumping up their revenue stream? If so, could you explain why this is the case?

For one thing, the GP wouldn't be doing the tonsilectomy, and so wouldn't receive insurance pay-outs for it. For another thing, tonsilectomies are a reasonable course of treatment for the ailment Obama seemed to be describing, and so attributing such a motive to a doctor merely causes friction between such people and their doctors for no conceivable reason.

Hypothetical scenario: a clinic purchases expensive testing equipment of some sort, because they know their clients expect them to be able to do such tests in-house, and if they farm out the test to some other clinic then they know the patient will just go to that other clinic instead, thus losing them a customer.

You're exaggerating the mobility of patients between different clinics, and you're ignoring the fact that different clinics in the US can specialize. A hospital without a trauma center, for instance, would not "lose a customer" because another hospital has a trauma center and treats someone's trauma. People in the US go to different centers and different clinics for different courses of treatment, and without necessarily poaching customers from each other.

Now they have this piece of expensive equipment which they only really need to use for every 50th patient at best, but they need to pay for it somehow, so they convince every 10th patient that he needs to pay for these expensive extra tests (even if he must pay out of pocket), "just to be safe". How is this unrealistic? Isn't this exactly how the US managed to build up its current glut of MRI machines, which they're so desperate to create business for that they actually advertise them across the border, complete with discount coupons?

First of all, you're ignoring the fact that there are benefits to having MRI machines and MRI's "just to be safe" do provide consumer-level benefits. Furthermore, you're right: once you have a machine you may as well use it (it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "pay[ing] for it somehow"--it has to do with the fact that the marginal cost is fairly low in comparison with the fixed costs, and so you may as well test a whole bunch of people even if the likely benefits to those people are small). There is neither anything sinister about this system, nor is there anything that would compromise patient care, nor is there any reason to believe even in this scenario that you've created that patients are being overcharged or gouged: they are almost certainly receiving benefits commensurate with the costs of using an MRI machine, at the margin. In short, you are painting a scenario and assuming that it presents a problem when in fact no problem exists.

[Darth Wong]

The US has the most expensive health care system in the world by far, despite its spotty coverage and massive personal costs to many recipients, and you confidently say "no problem exists"? The problem I'm referring to is the cost inflation of oversupply in certain areas. I suppose you can declare that this is not a problem if you don't really concern yourself with the overall cost per capita of the system, and concern yourself only with what any particular properly funded patient mght want at any given time.

[Master of Ossus]

The US has the most expensive health care system in the world by far, despite its spotty coverage and massive personal costs to many recipients, and you confidently say "no problem exists"? The problem I'm referring to is the cost inflation of oversupply in certain areas. I suppose you can declare that this is not a problem if you don't really concern yourself with the overall cost per capita of the system, and concern yourself only with what any particular properly funded patient mght want at any given time.

The results of the policies you're decrying are cheaper, less expensive, and more easily accessible MRI's. It may or may not be bad for the overall healthcare system to purchase an additional MRI machine, but it's obviously useful for consumers of healthcare.

[Patrick Degan]

The US has the most expensive health care system in the world by far, despite its spotty coverage and massive personal costs to many recipients, and you confidently say "no problem exists"? The problem I'm referring to is the cost inflation of oversupply in certain areas. I suppose you can declare that this is not a problem if you don't really concern yourself with the overall cost per capita of the system, and concern yourself only with what any particular properly funded patient mght want at any given time.

The results of the policies you're decrying are cheaper, less expensive, and more easily accessible MRI's. It may or may not be bad for the overall healthcare system to purchase an additional MRI machine, but it's obviously useful for consumers of healthcare.

Which addresses the actual issue of U.S. healthcare's systemic problems... how, exactly?

[Master of Ossus]

Which addresses the actual issue of U.S. healthcare's systemic problems... how, exactly?

Precisely my point: Darth Wong's been trying to claim that Obama's stupid example that he gave in his address to the nation was topical and addressed a legitimate problem with the country's current healthcare system, when in fact it did nothing of the sort.

[Themightytom]

The results of the policies you're decrying are cheaper, less expensive, and more easily accessible MRI's. It may or may not be bad for the overall healthcare system to purchase an additional MRI machine, but it's obviously useful for consumers of healthcare.

Whaaaaaa.... how is it cheaper if we end up paying for them via hoodwink? the hospital "justifies" an unneccesary expenditure by fudging with medical knowledge and continues to make other unneccesary purchases which we then pay for. The patient with insurance plays along because they have no idea the test is unneccesary and the insurance companies just quietly raise the premium. How is ANYTHING cheaper or less expensive?

Meanwhile medical expenses have been the leading cause of bankruptcy for years and we won't admit there's a problem?
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2 ... study.html

Geez do you buy a car when you can't afford it and take a road trip to prove you made a good call?

[Darth Wong]

The US has the most expensive health care system in the world by far, despite its spotty coverage and massive personal costs to many recipients, and you confidently say "no problem exists"? The problem I'm referring to is the cost inflation of oversupply in certain areas. I suppose you can declare that this is not a problem if you don't really concern yourself with the overall cost per capita of the system, and concern yourself only with what any particular properly funded patient mght want at any given time.

The results of the policies you're decrying are cheaper, less expensive, and more easily accessible MRI's.

This is like saying that if I buy a $5000 gold-plated juicer and use it once a month to get slightly cheaper juice, it must automatically be worth it.

It may or may not be bad for the overall healthcare system to purchase an additional MRI machine, but it's obviously useful for consumers of healthcare.

This sentence is utterly nonsensical. If it's bad for the overall system, it's bad for consumers because those costs have to go somewhere. They don't just vanish into the ether.

[Master of Ossus]

This is like saying that if I buy a $5000 gold-plated juicer and use it once a month to get slightly cheaper juice, it must automatically be worth it.

Nonsense--in competitive markets price falls to marginal cost. Indeed, your original post on this topic decried the US healthcare system for having the audacity to offer coupons for MRI's.

This sentence is utterly nonsensical. If it's bad for the overall system, it's bad for consumers because those costs have to go somewhere. They don't just vanish into the ether.

But the companies that purchased the MRI machines (fixed costs) will have to take that hit; not consumers.

[Darth Wong]

This is like saying that if I buy a $5000 gold-plated juicer and use it once a month to get slightly cheaper juice, it must automatically be worth it.

Nonsense--in competitive markets price falls to marginal cost. Indeed, your original post on this topic decried the US healthcare system for having the audacity to offer coupons for MRI's.

Do you honestly not understand the difference between the cost of the machine and the cost of the juice? That was the whole point I was making. I point out that you can't automatically assume the expensive machine is worth it if the juice costs a bit less and you triumphantly retort "Ah, but the juice is cheaper!"

This sentence is utterly nonsensical. If it's bad for the overall system, it's bad for consumers because those costs have to go somewhere. They don't just vanish into the ether.

But the companies that purchased the MRI machines (fixed costs) will have to take that hit; not consumers.

Ah, of course. Thanks to the magic of the free market, the cost will just magically go away. It's not as if they'll either go out of business or find ways to make up those costs somewhere else. Oh no, it just disappears, right?