Thursday, August 06, 2009

Pete Sessions Town Hall Meeting

Report from a stranger in a strange land

Pete Sessions held a town hall meeting in Richardson Wednesday evening. Grand Hall of the Civic Center. Inside, a festive atmosphere. An overflowing crowd. Every chair taken. People lined up two and three deep along the walls to the back and sides. Microphone connected to speakers in the room next door for people who didn't fit inside the Grand Hall.

The audience was dominated by vocal conservatives by at least a nine to one ratio. They were there for one overriding reason. To express hearty disapproval of anything smacking of health care reform. From the young man with the "John Galt" name tag to the old man marching down the center aisle with the sign reading, "Euthanize Obama 'Care' Not Our Seniors", it was clear that Pete Sessions had nothing to fear from this crowd. No one was going to ask him how holding fundraisers in Las Vegas burlesque houses is consistent with family values. No one was going to ask him how inserting earmarks for dirigible research at an Illinois company associated with a former aide is consistent with cutting government spending.

The crowd wasn't there to hear Pete Sessions. They were here to vent. Sessions played the crowd masterfully. He let everyone say their peace, speaking up mostly when someone left any doubt that Pete Sessions might not be one of them, but usually just letting the crowd do his work for him. And that they did. I don't have a recording of any of the proceedings, but here are snippets of what I remember. I use quotation marks for the audience questions, but loosely. I don't claim every quote is verbatim. (Reactions by the crowd or Pete Sessions are denoted in parentheses.) [My own editorial comments are in square brackets.]

  • "How can AARP support this health care bill?" (Crowd boos AARP.) [Sessions wisely sidesteps criticizing AARP.]
  • "How can Congress vote on a thousand page bill without reading it?" (Sessions agrees. He tells the public to read it.) [Uh huh.]
  • "Will you commit to never vote for a bill without reading it?" (Sessions says he has voted on lots of bills without reading them, but he "meticulously scours" "substantive" bills.) [That's a no to that commitment.]
  • "How did you vote on such and such a bill?" (Sessions says he doesn't remember every vote.) [How can you remember what you didn't even read?]
  • "You say you oppose health care reform because of cost. Yet you voted for a trillion dollar tax cut, a three trillion dollar war, a trillion dollar Medicare drug benefit, and a trillion dollar Wall Street bailout. How do you reconcile these?" (Puzzled crowd reaction. Do we boo Sessions' hypocrisy or boo the insolent Democrat asking the question? Sessions says something about Nancy Pelosi and the crowd laughs and hoots.) [Sessions skates.]
  • "The Democratic government passed a budget knowing it would drive up unemployment." (Sessions says he was a paperboy and never missed a day of work.) [Huh? My notes must have missed something.}
  • "Remember, the economic downturn began under George Bush." (Boo, hiss from audience.) [We refuse to remember.]
  • "I don't have health insurance." (Shout from audience: "Get a job.")
  • "There are 5 million in Texas without health insurance, including a million children." (Head shakes of denial from audience. Sessions says he opposed SCHIP because it results in parents dropping their own insurance to go to Parkland instead.) [Huh? My notes must be missing something again.]
  • "I founded a school in northern Iraq. I come back to America to find myself stabbed in the back. Will you commit to never voting for a bill that is against the Constitution?" (Sessions doesn't address the question.) [Sessions missed an opportunity. Who can't commit to that?]
  • "Congress works for us. How can they vote benefits for themselves that aren't available to their employers?" (Sessions says he doesn't accept Congressional health insurance. Crowd erupts in cheers.) [Best line of the night by Sessions.]
  • "The reason given for 'cap and trade' legislation is global warming. The theory doesn't hold water. It's bogus. A hoax." (Crowd cheers. Sessions says we need "nucular" energy. Says people with children in wheelchairs need SUVs. Says we do need to worry about the atmosphere but government shouldn't set standards. Government action will drive jobs overseas.) [A great sidestep. Sessions didn't have to take a stand on global warming or have to explain just how we should address it without government action.]
  • "Why should we give amnesty to illegal aliens?" (Sessions challenges the crowd to "write a bill that doesn't just throw everybody out of the country." Crowd shouts back, "Why not?" Sessions quickly pivots to saying he favors adding immigration enforcement to local police responsibilities. Crowd is back with him.) [This was Sessions' only question that he risked a position contrary to the wishes of his audience, but he recovered quickly.]
  • "80% of people are happy with their health care. Why can't government just leave us alone?" (White-haired lady, almost certainly a beneficiary of the single-payer, government-run, Medicare program, applauds. Sessions says government should work on the 20% that's the problem, not the 80% that's working right. Then, inexplicably, he says we don't have enough doctors for that 20%.) [Huh? Again, my notes must have missed the logic that ties these statements together.]
  • "I'm afraid that in another three months, six months, a year, we'll be so far gone I won't have a place to go to the polls." (Standing ovation from crowd.)
  • "Without a public option, how do you keep insurance companies from responding to the needs of Wall Street instead of the public?" (Puzzled reaction from audience as I imagine them wrestling with the thought, if we oppose the public option, does that mean we support Wall Street? Sessions resolved the conflict by replying, blah, blah, blah, Nancy Pelosi, and the crowd is back on the right page again, booing lustily.)
  • "What would your single page health care reform bill look like?" (Sessions says tort reform, a personal responsibility statement, prohibition of denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, pre-tax allowance for health care savings, a monster risk pool, and more competition among insurers.) [No one asked why neither Sessions nor any other GOP member of Congress introduced such a bill, if only to to be able to point to a better alternative. Correction: The GOP did introduce their own $700 billion bill on 7/29/2009.]
  • "Why did you vote for the Wall Street bailout?" (Sessions says the bailout would have worked except the new Congress decided it didn't want the money back and Barney Frank decided to give to Acorn whatever money was paid back. Crowd anger now directed at Frank and Acorn.) [Sessions skates.]
  • "When I was a 20-year-old single mother, $5,000 for a health savings account would have been impossible. Have some compassion." (Boos, hisses from audience.)
  • "America is the most compassionate country on Earth." (Wild applause from audience.) Seconds later, same woman, "I'm tired of paying for the education and health care of these people." (More wild applause from the self-professed compassionate audience.)
  • "I'm Dave from London and a member of the Texas Tea Party." (Cheers.) "I became a US citizen yesterday." (Louder cheers.) "If you are poor and sick in this country you are better off today than under 'ObamaCare'." (Still louder cheers.)
  • "I'm a US citizen but spent several years in Canada and was extremely pleased with Canadian health care." (Shouts from audience: "Go back.")
  • "The biggest lie is that our health care system is broken. Everybody in this country has access to health care. Go to the hospital emergency room." [My notes show no reply by Sessions, which was typical for positions that I can't believe even Sessions sympathizes with. Or does he?]
Finally, fifteen minutes past its alloted ninety minutes, Pete Sessions closed the town hall meeting by thanking everyone for attending and complimenting everyone for "respecting each others' opinions." It was a fitting irony to a perfectly surreal and entertaining evening.

104 comments:

Destiny said...

Last night was intense to say the least and a bit unorganized, but maybe they wanted it to be that way. There was a lot of grandstanding and speeches (not from Sessions) and I think you hit the nail on the head, people wanted to vent.

At one point Pete asked everyone with medical insurance to stand up and as I looked around I realized we have a very blessed community. I, though, was sitting. Being a lowly stay at home mother (a jobless bum, according to some, I guess) health insurance is not affordable for me. My husband and my children have a private plan (NOT paid for by his employer) but adding 'spouse' would triple our rate, which just isn't worth it. Either way this little exercise made me, personally, a bit uncomfortable b/c unfortunately I don't think a lot of my fellow Republicans get it. Not every who votes Republican is wealthy, and by me not standing, thus not being insured, I bet half of those people probably pegged me as a 'the enemy.'

Either way, that's neither here nor there, I'm certainly not saying I agree with the Obama health plan, just that I think I do have a unique perspective on the issue, and had anyone under the age of 65 been able to ask a question perhaps I would have.....or maybe I would've just bitched about strippers, who knows.


*BTW, I got a great video of that woman shouting out 'Go to hell' on my camera (She got boo'd from both sides with that one) and I also recorded some of Pete's answers. I'll try to get them all up by this afternoon.

Ed Cognoski said...

Destiny, thanks for your comment. It's a message that was definitely not heard last night.

Andy Gross (You are welcome name nazis) said...

The condescension in your post is amusing. Tell us what you really think about Session's constituents.

Destiny:
Who would you expect to pay for your bills if you were to incur significant hospital bills?

Ed Cognoski said...

Andy, what I really think? Assuming everyone in attendance actually is a constituent, I really think Pete Sessions has about 600 constituents, at least, who are very angry and in need of venting.

Destiny said...

I would. Of course. I'm simply saying that at the current cost of health insurance, I'm almost pissed at the end of the month if no one in my family HAS broken a bone or taken a trip to the ER.

Honestly, the HSA Pete talked about last night is the closest thing to logical insurance for my family. At the same time though, with the HSA, just like the 'nothing' I have now, I have to be severely ill to seek out medical care, as opposed to doing any type of preemptive check-ups.

I do not want to be on the governments dole AT ALL but at the same time I also prefer not to be raped by the insurance companies.

After having my second daughter, with a PPO through my company, I still ended up paying for half of the delivery costs, and my OB's bill on top of my $250 monthly payment.

I am not in anyway saying I am an expert on insurance, and perhaps I have never worked it properly, but to me it seems like an absolute waste of money. The only reason I do have it for my children is because I am scared of the quality of care they would receive being uninsured. And as the female wild card in the bunch, the premiums were lower for my husband to get the plan and carry our children on it. Don't even get me started on the patriarchy... :)

Ed Cognoski said...

I couldn't help thinking about the Pete Sessions town hall meeting when I read this paragraph from Kathleen Parker's column reprinted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Quote:
A telling anecdote recounted by Pat Buchanan to New Yorker writer George Packer last year captures the dark spirit that still hovers around the GOP. In 1966, Buchanan and Richard Nixon were at the Wade Hampton Hotel in Columbia, S.C., where Nixon worked a crowd into a frenzy: "Buchanan recalls that the room was full of sweat, cigar smoke and rage; the rhetoric, which was about patriotism and law and order, 'burned the paint off the walls.' As they left the hotel, Nixon said, 'This is the future of this Party, right here in the South.'"
Unquote.

Sherri said...

On a different topic, Sessions said we should solve the problem of how to generate power for our country without fossil fuels by using nuclear power. I'm okay with nuclear as a power source, but don't we still have to import the fuel? I mean there's only so much uranium in the desert southwest. So that option still leaves the U.S. dependent on other countries to fulfill our power needs.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting description. I could not be there and by the sound of it I am glad I didn't go.

Destiny is right. Republicans don't get it. While they shout about "socialism" or the latest insult of the minute they don't get it.

Having insurance is no guarantee. Insurance companies are inherently disposed to find any reason possible not to pay for your medical problem even though they insure you. Many of the older people in the audience very likely have lived most of their lives under a very different system where costs were a lower percentage of their income.

Younger people, especially families like Destiny's, realize that they are getting less health care while paying more. Much more. Its not difficult to get into a situation where a family's health care costs could exceed their rent or mortgage even when they are relatively healthy.

Health care is not like personal electronics. The average person isn't getting gigantic advancements in health care relative to cost. Sure they have advanced cancer-this and heart disease-that but the likelihood I will get to use those advancements compared to the tripling of my insurance over 6 years doesn't pay off. I am not getting three times as much health care.

If people think 80% of people are satisfied with their health care then they are in denial.

How do we explain that a huge percentage of bankruptcy cases involves major medical issues and a large percentage of people in those had insurance?

Most young people in growing families know that if they have a major medical problem in their immediate family, then they are screwed even with their insurance. Life savings and retirement will likely be depleted.

Brittanicus said...

The ripples have started before the major storm. WE MUST BE ON OUR GUARD?


More than ever before, this is the time to ignite the major issues under the feet of all politicians. We need the extraction process of mandated E-Verify composite of the SAVE ACT; to remove illegal labor from the workplace in all businesses Gathered together with local police detainment 287(g), the NO MATCH Social Security law and not to weaken ICE raids. All patriotic Americans who believe in a pro-sovereignty, anti-illegal immigrant must contact their arrogant pandering lawmakers, demanding no amnesty, no chain migration and build the border fence according two original specifications. American Workers and the general public must fight against abhorrent special interest groups, such as US chamber of Commerce, ACLU, La Raza, Council of Foreign Relations, ImmigrationWorksUSA and many more. Say--NO--to ACORN INVOLVED IN THE 2010 CENSUS. Sen. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi are the American Workers worst enemies?

That SANCTUARY STATES like California must rescind illegal immigrant refuge policies. That President Obama's health care renewal plan—WILL--attract millions more impoverished people from around the world. That they can join with the 20 plus million already here, to get free medical care under the Democrats law now passing through Congress. MY QUESTION IS! WHY SHOULD TAXPAYERS SUPPORT THE ILLEGAL LABOR FOR THE PARASITE CORPORATE ENTITIES ACROSS AMERICA? CALL TODAY AND GIVE POLITICIANS AT 202-224-3121 YOUR CRESCENDO OF FRUSTRATION? THAT'S ALL THEY UNDERSTAND--WHEN THEIR JOBS ARE IN PERIL. GOOGLE NUMBERSUSA AND JUDICIALWATCH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CORRUPTION AND PROFITEERING FROM BOTH PARTIES. OVERPOPULATION will be the irreversible consequences of mass immigration.

Ed Cognoski said...

Sherri, securing a supply of uranium is an important issue. I see it as much less of an issue than our current age's problems with oil.

"Anonymous" at 8/06/2009 3:04 PM, thanks for pointing out some of the problems with our current health care system. Changes are needed.

Brittanicus, umm..., okay.

Andy Gross (You are welcome name nazis) said...

Ed,

How many people live in his district? Surely all of these people weren't rounded up from the local stockyard to fill the crowd.

Andy Gross (You are welcome name nazis) said...

Destiny,

My wife is insured through her company. It cost us roughly $2500 dollars to have our daughter at Medical City Dallas.

When we went to the orientation for expectant parents, a couple asked how much the rooms would cost if they did not have insurance. You see, they wanted to pay cash for their care. The nurse, without batting an eye, stated that any deliveries involving no insurance would cost nothing. -0-. Zilch. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over.

I agree that the real benefit of insurance is the negotiated rates. If I could pay the same rates as an insurance company, I would drop all of our coverage and go with a catastrophic plan. That coupled with an HSA would be the ideal solution.

Ed Cognoski said...

Andy, according to the 2000 census, about 650,000 people live in District 32. As you say, surely they weren't all "rounded up from the local stockyard to fill the crowd."

William J. 'Bill' McCalpin said...

Sherri, you are right to be concerned about the source of uranium (why trade one resource problem for another?), but, fortunately, about half the world's supply comes from Canada and Australia, with Australia having almost a quarter of the world's known deposits. Quite a bit friendlier than many of our petroleum sources...although I think that Canada is one of our major sources of oil, too. Better keep those guys in our side, eh? ;-)

Bill

Destiny said...

Andy,

Perhaps I totally misread your response (three times), but if not......I am left to wonder -why have insurance at all?

PS- Is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot code for Medicaid?

Signed,
Totally Out of the Loop....evidently.

Sherri said...

Destiny, just use the initials on that 'code'. ;)

Destiny said...

Ooooooooooooooooh, sorry, I'm slow....not so good with the LOL's, ROFLAO, and WTF's.

Anyway, I actually called my aunt this morning, who was planning a home-birth but at the last minute had complications and was transfered to Parkland. Grand total- right under $2,000. Not too bad, but still no 'zilch.'

Andy Gross (You are welcome name nazis) said...

Destiny,

Apologies. I should have added that the actual bill was well over 12K. The insurance negotiated down the rate, and the $2500 was my part of the remainder (co-pay). And mind you, this was in-network and my wife has a 90-10 plan. My point is that the people who waltz in with no insurance, and with no intent to pay get off with medical care that the rest of us subsidize. Which was confirmed by the nurse. The hospital staff (doctors and nurses) don't appear to worry on the front end about collecting payment. The billing occurs after the fact.

The real savings in insurance is the negotiated rates. And yes, if I could get those rates I'd drop comprehensive coverage and go to catastrophic. But I don't, so I pony up the money.

Is your aunt uninsured? From what she paid, I'd expect that she is.

Andy Gross (You are welcome name nazis) said...

Man I really need to re-read my post before submitting it.

From the amount your aunt paid, I'd expect that she IS insured.

Destiny said...

Not insured. She's a massage therapist, and her husband is self employed.

Every year they drop about $1,200 on vaccines for there kids and then an additional couple hundred on ear aches/sore throats at the CVS minute clinic.

But then when something big happens, like my uncle having to get his tonsils out, they just have to pay it off over time.

Honestly, to me, this is state of healthcare for MANY people nowadays. Many, middle class people. My family lives in a nice home, we have two cars, and are fairly comfortable. But just as Anonymous 8/06/2009 3:04 PM said so eloquently, we "are getting less health care while paying more. Much more."

Sure we could sell a car to afford health insurance for me, but in my opinion, it's just not worth it. Even when I had my PPO anytime I made a claim it felt like they were trying to screw me over....to see what they could get away with. And not being a seasoned negotiator, 9 times out of 10 I'd just pay the bill.

The thing is, I would like some security, NOT FOR FREE, but for a reasonable rate with the understanding that I am paying into this, so when I need it it'll be there. But that's just not the way it works anymore.

.....so now I live on the edge, knowing at any moment bankruptcy is just one tumor away...it's exhilarating. :)

Anonymous said...

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/
"Health Care, does Canada do it better?" Friday, July 31, 20/20 on ABC:
JOHN STOSSEL: Some in Congress say they’re moving closer to a plan that will make health care cheaper and better. Sounds great. But when government takes charge, it can also mean innovation stops, and you may not get the breakthroughs and care that you need to save your life.
BARACK OBAMA IN FRONT OF AUDIENCE: -affordable health care for every single American, that’s what we’re called upon to do.
STOSSEL: Care for everyone, for less money. Critics say that just isn’t possible.
SALLY PIPES, PACIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE: The only way they can get costs down under a government-run system is to control the amount of money that is spent on health care. But there is much more of a demand for health care than the government is willing to pay for. We will have long waits for care just like they do in Canada and in Great Britain.
STOSSEL: Those countries do have problems.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The nationwide shortage of NHS dentists-
STOSSEL: In England, people wait just to register for a dentist. Waits are so long, some people do it themselves. He used superglue. Some pull their own teeth. Dental tools – pliers and Vodka. Patients protest because the health service won’t pay for drugs they say they need. The President says he doesn’t want that.
OBAMA: -you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They’re not telling the truth.
STOSSEL: But once, he did say that if he were starting from scratch-
OBAMA, FROM DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY DEBATE: I would probably go with a single-payer system.
STOSSEL: He says he doesn’t want government-run health care.
PIPES: He does want government health care. He just wants to go about it in a slow way so people don’t realize what’s happening to them.
STOSSEL: Many pundits and economists agree, saying Obama’s plan will build "a bridge to government-run health care."
PIPES: -and we’re all going to face long waiting lists and have lack of access to the latest care.
DOCTOR DAVID GRATZER, AUTHOR OF THE CURE: People line up for care, some of them die, that’s what happens.
STOSSEL: Canadian Doctor David Gratzer thought Canada’s government health care was great until he started treating patients.
GRATZER; The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house-
STOSSEL: People wait in line?
GRATZER: You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem. You just have to wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem. Free as the air. You just got to wait six months.
STOSSEL: But Canadian doctors told us their system is cracking. This man had a heart attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE DOCTOR: What did they tell you about when an ICU bed might become available?
for rest of transcript go here:http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2009/08/01/abc-s-stossel-slams-socialized-medicine-finds-obama-expressed-interes

Anonymous said...

10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/08/2009 9:37 AM and 8/08/2009 9:41 AM, if you have anything to say in your own words about Pete Sessions' town hall meeting, I'd be very interested to listen.

Anonymous said...

John Stossel, The libertarian quoting the Pacific "research" institute. That's classic.

Then he cites the National Center for Policy "Analysis," a far far right wing "think" tank.

Yep. That's objective.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm a permanent resident living in Allen, TX, born and raised in South Western Ontario.

Let's compare

My Dad, in London Ontario, one of the major Medical Centres of Canada, has had at least three MRI's and three orthopedic surgeries over the last 10 years. The first MRI took 3 or 4 months and he had to travel to Sarnia (hour trip with a hip that need replacing, badly), second one, IIRC simular timing and had to travel to Hamilton, again over an hour.

As far as the surgeries, for first one, supposed to be for the hip, but a month before the operation, 7 months after it was scheduled BTW, his Physio-therapist got concerned about how he picked up his jacket, bam, it was the left rotator cuff. Turns out the finally figured out, the rotator cuff had been detached for years, and my Dad's compensation for it got his back out of balance, which did in the hip, which deteriorated his knee. Yeah, he's liking it!

So they switch the hip to a rotator cuff repair, schedule the hip for the next available spot, about 9 months later, yah for him. And he had his knee a few years after the hip, again after a long wait.

So, then consider poor old me, with the inferior health care in the states. Get an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon, prescribes some PT and a MRI, sadly I had to wait 3 days for the MRI, can you believe that, all of the injustices of this world. Once he knew what was up, gave me a shot of cortisone to help me get by, baby boy due in a few months, no time for surgery if helped. Time goes by, getting by with my shoulder, son turns 3 months old, wife has it all under control, head to a different Orthopedic Surgeon, did not like the first, definitely diagnosed as a labrum tear, (SLAP) gave me another shot of cortisone to get my by, checked in with him 2 months later, getting really bad and the call for surgery was made, PT was not helping. And again, the injustice of it all, had the surgery 3 weeks later, when it made the most sense with vacations and my Dad visiting and being able to help my wife with the kids. I tell ya, this health care down here must be broken. Pay significantly less in taxes, in fact with the out of pocket of child birth and my shoulder combined where less than the delta in taxes if we where living in Canada.

So, where I sit, and with what I have seen reading other stories of people in Canada getting put on a 4 to 8 month waiting lists for cancers that have a significantly high 3 month mortality rates, I am liking our current system in the states.

Anonymous said...

Destiny,

Have you ever compared the governmental balance sheets of the countries that have single payer government insurance.

Simply put, in Sweden, Saudi you will find those governments have SIGNIFICANT incomes from selling of natural resources, OIL. Otherwise, in the UK, Canada and such, you will see a significant jump in taxes.

So you see Destiny, you pay for the health care on way or another. Would you rather it be you who decides out the money is to be spent for you and your childrens behalf, or would you rather the GOVERNMENT and all of their inefficiencies be the ones to decide how your money is spent???

In Canada, between income tax, PST and GST over 50% of your money is going to the government. So that means, everyday, the work you are doing from 8am to 12noon is being donated to the government to do as they please. You have no control of where your time is going, none. You are lucky to be able to benefit from most of the time from 1pm to 5pm.

So, Monday at work, I would ask you to seriously consider, at what point in the day do you want to gain benefit from your labor instead of the government????

signed: LoneRider

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/09/2009 12:32 AM, thanks for the anecdote about your father's experiences in Canada. I've now heard anecdotes both ways. Just like I hear anecdotes both ways about American health care.

LoneRider, you ask, "at what point in the day do you want to gain benefit from your labor instead of the government????" Personally, I view the "government" as me acting collectively with my friends and neighbors. So, the question isn't whether I gain benefit or the government gains benefit, but whether the money leads to benefits and isn't wasted. Sometimes benefits are more easily achieved by each of us spending our money separately. Sometimes they are more easily achieved by us acting collectively.

Anonymous said...

* Thus, Canadian supreme court justice Marie Deschamps wrote in her 2005 majority opinion in Chaoulli v. Quebec, "This case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care."

read the rest of the article at:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/07/government_medicine_should_horrify_americans_97810.html

Anonymous said...

link did not appear entirely..reposting. title is: "Government medicine should horrify americans"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/07/government_medicine_should_horrify_americans_97810.html

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/09/2009 10:05 AM, thanks for the cut-and-paste and links to other sites. If you have anything to say in your own words about Pete Sessions' town hall meeting, I'd be interested to hear it.

Anonymous said...

Ed,

Fair enough, and I agree there are somethings only the federal government can do collectively, and I do believe our Constitution was pretty clear in what our federal government has power to do. Health care, education, home purchase assistance, car purchase assistance are not in there IIRC.

So I will ask you, where in History, has the government controlling everything has worked. Did not work so well for the Russians, not working so well for the UK, not so for Canada, (BTW, I am the Canadian in the above story, forgot to sign, sorry).

The number of Canadian social services and government failures I've seen are simply horrendous. A woman I worked with at University, her father immigrant, has two brothers both traveled to Canada used his OHIP card for heart surgeries. My best friend's sister has a child every 4 years to keep welfare police from trying to make her get a job, I knew craftsmen who worked "6 months" a year, all their employer ask for was 10% of the poggy to adjust the books so their job was "seasonal". Or there are the "research projects" that consist of news paper clippings.

So you can't use Sweden as an example either, their tapping oil resources like they are going out of style, can't use France; only having a couple of cars a night burned in the ghetto is not really a success, so France is out; can't use Spain, 20% unemployment; can't use the UK, citizens are going to jail because they protected themselves from buglers and their children from gangs. Can't use Cuba, Can't use Venezuela and so on.

So, I ask you Ed, how, how does a community organizer who continually appoints tax cheats, racists and un-scrutinized czars going to do better than those other governments.

How is our single payer government health care system going to be better than England's? I ask you, where is the bill does it have provisions that avoids the failure in Canada's and the UK's health care system. Seriously, I want quotes.

Ed, believe it, fundamentally I would love to see a single system. It just does not work. Humans tend to maximize their own standing. The problem is, every single person has different criteria, Bill Gates maybe winning in business at all costs, yours maybe helping as many people as possible. As you and I might use "free" health care responsibly, many would not. I think our jails are proof you can not mandate responsibility.

In the end Ed, I think that last 200 years have proven, that any individual who follows the rules that once governed our society usually did well. I also argue that if our society is so bad how come even the poorest have a better standard of living than probably 1/2 the people in the world.

Seriously, would you rather be poor in the US or Korea? How about Cuba.

A friend of mine at work, his brother-in-law, with no insurance, at all, was in a bad car accident two weeks ago, he is currently receiving the best care available at Baylor, care-flight and all. So, if a Cuban where to get in a bad accident, think they would get care-flight'd to a world class trauma hospital? And I know, next thing you going to say, is he now going to be saddled with $100k in bills. And you know what, your right, if he had spent about $100-$200 a month on a major medical policy INSTEAD OF BEER, his out of pocket would be capped at around 5 or $6k, which granted is still a lot of money. But y'know what, still beats being left for dead.

signed: LoneRider

Ed Cognoski said...

LoneRider, thanks for the further thoughts.

Although some like you raise Constitutional questions about the government's role in health care, there is little likelihood that it's going to be ruled unconstitutional. The almost half century history of Medicare pretty much puts that argument to rest, in my opinion.

None of the current bills for health care reform amount to the "government controlling everything." The US proposals do not nationalize health care as in the UK, they do not institute a single payer system as in Canada or Australia. The current bills leave much of the current private health insurance system in place, although some of them offer the promise a government option as well. Not instead of private insurance, but in addition to private insurance. If you like your private individual health insurance plan, keep it.

You argue that the proposed bills will not result in a better health care system than the UK, Canada, Sweden, France, etc. The ironic thing is that those on the extreme left say the same thing. They say the current bills don't do enough to free the American health care system from the inefficiencies and unfairness and just plain craziness of the current American system. So, the far left and right are both unhappy. Which tells me that the bills are probably about the best our broken democracy is going to be able to achieve.

Anonymous said...

so you prefer a crapshoot with the healthcare of all americans...

not to mention a crapshoot with the largest job sector/ 1/6 of the of U.S. economy, employing 14 million people?

what if you are wrong?

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/09/2009 5:18 PM, I don't consider the proposed health care reform bills a crap shoot. Flawed as they are, I consider them an improvement over the status quo. I do consider sticking with the status quo a guaranteed losing proposition.

Anonymous said...

Destiny,

Like Pete said at the townhall when the lady said she couldn't afford insurance...

She can get a $5000 HSA (Health Savings Account)with or without dental and there is the option of backup Catastrophic coverage.

Anonymous said...

Ed, this has been in the back of my mind for a couple of days, and I really want you to seriously think of the idiocy of the statement "Both side are equally upset, so we must have met a good compromise" (or such)

I am sorry, but how insane is that. I am an engineer, we do not design something and call it good when equal numbers of people on both sides think it is an equally bad design. No company in the world would keep its doors open with that philosophy.

Again I ask, where are the studies of the effects of all of the measures that are in the bills?

Read the one synopsis of the bill http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=271189 and tell me this is not going to cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, cost 100's of thousands of jobs. No other bill in congress will cause more jobs to go underground. As in Canada, the motivation for under the table employment will grow, always does as taxes increase.

signed LoneRider

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Ed Cognoski said...

LoneRider, I said, "the bills are probably about the best our broken democracy is going to be able to achieve." To get anything passed in Congress, you need to get the votes. And that almost always results in laws that are not ideal. You're right, if private companies operated that way, they probably could not keep their doors open. But replacing our democracy with a dictatorship of "experts" is not an option, at least not for me.

As for the impact of the legislation, it's been studied by both sides and everybody can point to some prediction or other that supports their case. The case for change has one advantage in that the status quo has serious problems itself.

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous, if you have anything to add in your own words, I'd be interested in hearing them. I'm going to delete your multiple-post comment that simply cuts-and-pastes a copyrighted article from CNN. If anyone wants to read the article they can follow this link.

Anonymous said...

ed, what is it that you like about this bill so much that you support it? what positive things are in this bill that you want to see implemented?

we can solve individual problems with individual bills such as:

problem: high costs
solution:tort reform bill

problem:lack of portability
solution:bill that allows portability.

what specifics things do you see in this bill that makes you think a complete-overhaul-of-the-healthcare-system-throw-the-baby-out-with-the bathwater-bill is better than individual bills targeting individual problems?

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/12/2009 3:15 PM, you ask good questions.

There are four things I like about some of the current bills in Congress. These are regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition.

Comprehensive legislation is needed instead of individual bills because the four things depend on each other for reform to work. For example, insurance companies don't like having to accept persons with pre-existing conditions (regulation), but are willing to accept such regulation in return for access to a large number of new mostly-healthy customers (mandates). Similarly, mandates won't work without subsidies for those too poor to afford health insurance. And finally the cost of those subsidies is not affordable without the cost savings that increased competition will bring. Only a comprehensive solution will work.

Anonymous said...

i think that you might like the swiss system, which is sort of between the american system and socialism/british system.

these are just the first articles i came across.


http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/23/health-care-around-the-world-switzerland/

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/US_healthcare_reform_looks_to_the_Swiss.html?siteSect=105&sid=11042251&cKey=1249748861000&ty=st

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/

this is the only type of complete overhaul that would be acceptable to me, something that is universal but is ALL private insurance (no public option, no co-op, no govt run healthcare) with competition with lots of insurance companies driving the price down and doesn't intrude into my life and dictate (cough that sounds like "obamacare").

of course we would still have to defeat obamacare. but maybe we can start a push for this now so that the next batch of presidential candidates have to support this.

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/11/2009 7:01 PM, thanks for the links. As you oppose any involvement of the gov't in health insurance, you must be opposed to Medicare. Many seniors like the program, one enough to angrily cry out at a town hall meeting, without the least awareness of the irony, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare."

I'm happy that the bills in Congress don't propose eliminating Medicare, but I take it that a bill you would write would take that senior's Medicare away from him. I'll let you tell him.

Anonymous said...

medicare is broke and a failure with around *****36 TRILLION in unfunded liability*****
(GASP!!!!!!) because it is govt run healthcare, which makes it one of the best reasons to oppose this healthcare bill which is an expansion of govt run healthcare (socialized medicine).

i could support the swiss sort of plan as i explained before which is mandated universal ALL PRIVATE insurance with subsidies for the poor, with lots of companies competing which drives the cost down like in switzerland because there are many to choose from. this is a complete overhaul plan that solves the problem all at once. medicare would go away. i would say starting from the date of the bill anyone born after that date wouldn't get medicare. or faster. medicaid would go away but there would be subsidies for the poorest etc. we could replace medicare with much higher subsidies than everyone else to get agreement to the plan from the seniors. this plan is not intrusive into my private life like obamacare/socialized/govt run medicine.

i could support a reform that goes bit by bit, removing state barriers to buy health insurance, tort reform (which are not in obamacare) to bring down costs etc. not making a backroom deal with big pharma promising not to negotiate lower prices like obama did. having a bill to make insurance portable. possibly moving insurance from employers to individuals. select separate solutions to problems. medicare does have to be addressed by eliminating it all at once, making it smaller or phasing it out gradually because we can't pay for it. there are other issues too. solutions one at a time that are not socialized/govt run medicine and do not intrude into my private life.

there may be more healthcare reform options i can get behind that i am unaware of.

one thing i cannot get behind is obamacare/socialized/govt run medicine with its rationing/denial of care and intruding into my private life.

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/12/2009 8:06 AM, I encourage you to show up at Pete Sessions' next town hall meeting in Irving and advocate doing away with Medicare. See if the audience cheers you on. More important, see if Pete Sessions has your back.

Anonymous said...

like i said, since obamacare is an immanent threat we have to defeat obamacare first.

finding policians who support either of those other reform options i listed (which does include replacing or dismantling medicare) is for the next presidential election. one thing at a time.

it is a good time to get support for a swiss-like plan, though, at least at a grassroots level. i won't be able to go to the irving one, perhaps you can mention the swiss plan there if you go and try to get some support for it.

some food for thought:

Obama:

"I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about, if you think about it, um, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? The, uh, no they are. I mean, it's the post office that's always having problems."


(thanks, Obama, for making it clear to me why i should not support your healthcare bill)


Koch: Falling out of love with Barack Obama

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/ss_politics0634_08_10.asp


Change We Can't Believe In?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/11/AR2009081102810_2.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns&sid=ST2009081102867


Obama's healthcare horror

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/08/12/town_halls/index.html


Undue Influence
The House Bill Skews End-of-Life Counsel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html



big business goes big for healthcare reform

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/12/big_business_goes_big_for_health-care_reform_97859.html

Anonymous said...

Government Health Care in Stealth Mode

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/10/government_health_care_in_stealth_mode_97826.html


Gov't insurance would allow coverage for abortion

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jE8oH07rubGHV6lmgcgIGJFdUdkAD99SQP380

Anonymous said...

end of life-

Obama:

“Look, the first thing for all of us to understand that is we actually have some -- some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care… we as a culture and as a society [can start] to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves...at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

http://www.examiner.com/x-16260-Windham-County-Republican-Examiner~y2009m8d11-Scare-tactics-are-even-scarier-than-they-seem-because-many-of-them-are-facts



If, as Harold Pollack argues, “rationing of life-saving or life-extending care” would not really be a priority for the “effectiveness” panels–such as the Obama-endorsed IMAC–then it was all the more stupid to bring the topic up, no? Here’s the first graf from a Bloomberg account of an early Obama health care foray back in April:

April 29 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.

Gee, where could the misinformed town hall crazies have gotten the idea that Obama was thinking about saving money by denying expensive procedures toward the end of life?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/08/11/a-debate-we-didn-t-have-to-have.aspx

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/12/2009 8:51 AM, if I understand you correctly, you see defeating comprehensive health insurance reform as the first step in eliminating Medicare, but you don't want to go public with that strategy at this time. I can understand why.

Anonymous said...

'What's in this for me?'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0810edit1aug10,0,7434576.story

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonmyous" at 8/12/2009 9:18 AM, President Obama considered many things in developing his recommendations for comprehensive health insurance reform. Every day, families are faced with difficult decisions about end-of-life health care. Obama wrestled with these questions when his own grandmother was dying. He chose to support a hip replacement for her even though his grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer. It's personal experiences like that that give Obama the empathy needed to make sound recommendations, which he's done. There are no "death panels" in any of the health insurance reform bills being debated in Congress.

Anonymous said...

Eugene Robinson questioning end-of-life-care section of healthcare bill:


Behind the Rage, a Cold Reality

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html


"We know that there are crazies in the town hall mobs — paranoid fantasists who imagine they hear the whop-whop-whop of the World Government black helicopters coming closer by the minute. We know that much of the action is being directed from the wings by cynical political operatives, following a script written by Washington lobbyists. But the nut jobs and carpetbaggers are outnumbered by confused and concerned Americans who seem genuinely convinced they’re not being told the whole truth about health-care reform.

And they have a point. …

If a technology exists that can prolong life or improve its quality, even for a few weeks or months, why shouldn’t we want it?
That’s the reason people are so frightened and enraged about the proposed measure that would allow Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling. **If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending."**

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/12/2009 12:12 PM, instead of you cutting-and-pasting, I'd rather hear what you think in your own words.

Again, there are no "death panels" in the health care bills. People who insist on claiming there are are delusional and/or devious.

The proposed new Medicare benefit is just that, a benefit. If Republicans don't want to take advantage of this benefit, they are free not to, but they shouldn't try to deny the benefit to everyone. That's what's ironic. People opposing health care reform are themselves guilty of what they accuse others of proposing -- that is, have the government make decisions about what health care benefits people can and, in this case, cannot have.

Anonymous said...
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Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/12/2009 12:58 PM, please tell us in your own words what you think. Don't just cut-and-paste copyrighted articles from other sites. I'm deleting your comment. Readers who want to read the article can go here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

Anonymous said...

oh, you don't want to call the death panels death panels? let's call the dealth panels "an independent group that can give you guidance" like obama calls them.



There He Goes Again (Just Don't Call Them "Death Panels")

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/08/there-he-goes-again.html/

Anonymous said...

i thought liberals wanted to protect the little guy against the powerful but i guess i must be wrong about that because there is so much intrusion into personal lives in the house bill and liberals aren't up in arms.

put aside the govt deciding whether you can live or die.

put aside the govt writing into law that doctors discuss end of life care with seniors (discussing when to pull the plug) every five years and more often when they get sick.

it talks about nurses going to people's homes to

"increasing the interval between pregnancies"

(maybe liberals don't mind the govt telling them to increase the intervals between their pregnancies. no outcry on that from the left.)

tell people how to parent

(are liberals ok with the govt coming into their homes and telling them how to parent? no outcry so i guess so. also special focus on the poor areas so i am not surprised there isn't an outcry from the rich liberals but i would have expected the poor liberals saying "do you think we are bad parents?" or something. yet nothing about this discrimination against the poor from the left.)

Anonymous said...

also

vaccination teams to people's homes to make sure the kids get vaccinations.

(i thought some liberals believed vaccinations are bad and wanted the freedom to opt out? maybe i'm wrong because no outcry.)

also

the govt will access your bank account to decide what you qualify for and will add or subract money depending on if you owe or need reimbursing.

(maybe liberals don't think this is govt overreaching into personal life...no outcry on that either).

privacy issues with personal info on govt computers (has been stolen several times now.)

also

taxpayers paying for other people's abortions (do liberals want to pay for other people's elective surgery? no outcry there.)

Anonymous said...

you could go on and on about the govt intrusion into private lives in this healthcare bill.

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 9:17 AM, check your own health insurance policy. The chances are good it covers end-of-life health care consultations. The proposed bill extends the same benefits to Medicare recipients.

"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 9:43 AM, it's true that "liberals wanted to protect the little guy against the powerful." That's why most liberals favor this bill, which regulates the all-powerful private insurance companies, protecting the little guy against their denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions or dropping of coverage because you get sick.

"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 9:43 AM, the government isn't going to be spying into your bank account. The bill allows for online banking, so people can pay their premiums online, like they do for their Visa bill, their heating bill, their cable bill, etc. If you want to write your check, stuff it in an envelope, stick a stamp on it and take it down to the post office, you're free to do that, too.

"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 9:45 AM, I'm sure you could go on and on, but so far, you have failed repeatedly to identify where the government is intruding rather than finally addressing these long-standing problems with health insurance in this country.

But thank you all for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight. Look, I think there are reasonable differences deserving of debate, but the bogeymen the right is dredging up to scare the American public just aren't real.

Anonymous said...

eugene robinson and sarah palin are having similar thoughts about the end of life care section of the healthcare bill. these two people have absolutely nothing in common.

it is very interesting.

Anonymous said...

to me it seems simple:

1) granny is the little guy

2) liberals aren't protecting granny

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous at 8/13/2009 10:21 AM, you are wrong to claim that Eugene Robinson and Sarah Palin are having similar thoughts. Here's what Robinson did say:

"It's irresponsible for politicians, such as Sarah Palin, to claim -- outlandishly and falsely -- that there's going to be some kind of 'death panel' to decide when to pull the plug on Aunt Sylvia. But it's understandable why people might associate the phrase 'health-care reform' with limiting their choices during Aunt Sylvia's final days."

Anonymous at 8/13/2009 10:26 AM, liberals are planning to offer granny the same health care benefits through Medicare that many people with private health insurance already enjoy. I'd call that protecting granny. It's the conservatives who want to deny granny benefits.

Anonymous said...

forgot to mention that we can refer to IMAC as "one of the death panels"

http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/08/12/will-you-won-t-you-be-on-my-death-panel.aspx

there are so many new beaurocratic agencies that will be created to ration care that it's easy to forget the names of some of the rationing panels.

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/13/2009 11:48 AM, the proposed health insurance reform bills include new regulations (things like prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions). Those regulations necessitate regulatory bodies to make sure the health care industry is playing fair. It would be silly to impose new rules but not assign umpires to make sure the players follow them.

Anonymous said...

rationing panels will be set up to ration healthcare.

it is important not to confuse these with other agencies.

IMAC is one of the them, but there will be more than that.

Anonymous said...

1) obama proposes rationed healthcare.

2) most healthcare dollars are spent in last yr of life.

therefore:

granny's care will be cut first.

result:

lots of angry grannies out there.

(question: why aren't liberals protecting granny?)

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/14/2009 8:45 AM, health care reform does not introduce rationing of health care. It's a scare tactic used by those who don't want to discuss what health care reform really is.

"Anonymous" at 8/14/2009 8:53 AM, you are repeating myths already rebutted. To repeat the rebuttal, liberals are planning to offer granny the same health care benefits through Medicare that many people with private health insurance already enjoy. I'd call that protecting granny. It's the conservatives who want to deny granny benefits.

Anonymous said...

article explains that obamacare is rationed care:


Obama's Senior Moment
Why the elderly are right to worry when the government rations medical care.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574344900152168372.html

Ed Cognoski said...

"Anonymous" at 8/14/2009 2:59 PM, can't you explain in your own words?

Anonymous said...

IMAC and FCCCE are two rationing boards that are part obamacare.

FCCCE was in the stimulus bill. IMAC is in the current bill.

(FCCCE stands for Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness. IMAC stands for Independent Medicare Advisory Council.)

The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology is an entity that will track your treatment to make sure your doctor doesn't deviate from the low cost one size-fits-all treatment authorized by the govt.

The Health and Human Services Secretary will punish doctors and hospitals that deviate from the authorized treatments.

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous at 8/15/2009 3:30 PM, IMAC isn't a rationing board. It's an independent board of medical professionals that will study the effectiveness of health care and make recommendations to physicians and hospitals about what works and what doesn't. It's a long-needed improvement to the current system.

Anonymous said...

IMAC would have the “power to decide the scope of coverage that would be eligible for reimbursement under Medicare”.


(non-doctor rationing board.)

Ed Cognoski said...

Ever since Medicare's inception in 1965, the government has had the "power to decide the scope of coverage that would be eligible for reimbursement under Medicare."

Anonymous said...

You know we already have a level of "death panels" going on at our lovely Richardson Hospital today. There are doctors that review charts of those entering thru the ER and determine whether to admit or whether to make comfortable/stable and send home. There docs never see a patient, just review charts. The creation of Hospitalists have changed the care, also. These doctors are nomads of the hospital and are assigned to co-ordinate care while you are admitted and manage the costs, ie your care.

So if you think healthcare is anymore than business, wake up and smell the coffee. Insurance companies are backed by the big boys of Wall Street......Goldman Sacks, JPMorgan...etc. Why do you think AIG was bailed out under Bush's Admin at the direction of Paulson? Not to save healthcare, far from it.
Ed, I appreciate you idealist views and I like to think that most people want to do the right thing, but it might be time to gather a bit more information for an educated opinion. Just a suggestion.

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous at 8/16/2009 11:53 PM, thanks for the feedback. Of course everywhere in the health care delivery chain, by nurses, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, there are decisions made about the appropriate health care for each patient. Nothing in the proposed legislation amounts to a "death panel." Claiming otherwise is dishonest and serves only to scare the public for the purposes of killing necessary reform.

Anonymous said...

the purpose of IMAC is to cut costs.

the way they will cut costs is by deciding on what will be covered and what will not.

Ed Cognoski said...

As I said, the government has always decided what will be covered and what will not. What is needed is an independent panel of doctors and health care experts to study what works and what doesn't, emphasizing quality over quantity. The result will be both better health care and lower costs. That's something all Americans should be for.

Anonymous said...

we know the bill is about rationing because an amendment to prevent rationing was struck down.

amentment:
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Amdt_Herger_CER.pdf

votes:
http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=7215

if the dems wanted to make sure rationing didn't happen, they would have voted for the amendment.

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous at 8/17/2009 7:45 PM, if the GOP wanted to prohibit rationing, they should have offered an amendment that prohibits rationing. The amendment you cite doesn't do that. It doesn't even use the word rationing.

Anonymous said...

let me get this straight:

in order to believe obamacare is rationing, you need to see the word "rationing" in the bill ...

and in order for you to believe the amendment preventing rationing does just that, you need to see the word "rationing" in the amendment?

Ed Cognoski said...

If the GOP wanted to amend the bill to prohibit rationing, then, yes, it would have been reasonable for them to use the word rationing in their amendment. D'oh.

Anonymous said...

do you agree with the amendment?:


text of the amendment:

AMENDMENT
OFFERED BY MR. HERGER OF CALIFORNIA
Add at the end of section 1181 of the Social Security
Act, as added by section 1401(a) of this bill (relating
to comparative effectiveness research), the following new
subsection:
1 ‘‘(i) APPLICATION OF FEDERALLY FUNDED CLIN2
ICAL COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH.—The
3 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may not use
4 Federally funded clinical comparative effectiveness re5
search data under this section to make coverage deter6
minations for medical treatments, services, or items under
7 title XVIII on the basis of cost.’’.

Ed Cognoski said...

Do I agree with the amendment? Of course not. The amendment says we shouldn't take cost into consideration when reforming health care. Like if you're in the drug store and choosing between Tylenol® and a generic equivalent, you should ignore the price difference. The whole point of health care reform is to improve health care without breaking the bank. The GOP amendment is not only silly, it's irresponsible.

Notice how this has nothing to do with "rationing."

Anonymous said...

2 cases where an american govt-run healthcare system (oregon health plan/medicaid) DID choose the cheaper of 2 pills:

http://www.ohsu.edu/pcmonline/docs/Oregon%20Rationing.pdf

Ed Cognoski said...

Now Obama wants to kill not just granny, but cancer patients, too. How about kittens? Look, there are reasonable areas to disagree over the best way to achieve health care reform in this country, but making things up is not the way to do it.

Anonymous said...

what is being "made up" ?

(the article is written by an oregon MD oncologist and his facts appear to be accurate.)

Ed Cognoski said...

The charges that Obama wants to kill Palin's baby, Grassley's grandma, and now cancer patients are all made up.

Anonymous said...

2 cases where an american govt-run healthcare system (oregon health plan/medicaid) DID choose the cheaper of 2 pills:

http://www.ohsu.edu/pcmonline/docs/Oregon%20Rationing.pdf


---i don't see how you go from that to "charges that obama wants to kill Palin's baby, Grassley's grandma, cancer patients."

please explain.

Ed Cognoski said...

No further explanation is necessary. Readers have enough information to make an informed opinion about whether Obama wants to kill cancer patients. What you yourself believe is up to you.

Anonymous said...

liberal icon Nat Hentoff:

I am finally scared of a White House administration

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff081909.php3

quotes:
No matter what Congress does when it returns from its recess, rationing is a basic part of Obama's eventual master health care plan.

Here is what Obama said in an April 28 New York Times interview (quoted in Washington Times July 9 editorial) in which he describes a government end-of-life services guide for the citizenry as we get to a certain age, or are in a certain grave condition. Our government will undertake, he says, a "very difficult democratic conversation" about how "the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care" costs.

(it is not just conservatives that think obamacare is rationing.)

Anonymous said...

ObamaCare Is All About Rationing

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358233780260914.html

(this article has more specifics about how obamacare is rationing)

Anonymous said...

read what "rationed care" is from someone who believes in it:


Why We Must Ration Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

quote:

Last year Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence gave a preliminary recommendation that the National Health Service should not offer Sutent for advanced kidney cancer. The institute, generally known as NICE, is a government-financed but independently run organization set up to provide national guidance on promoting good health and treating illness. The decision on Sutent did not, at first glance, appear difficult. NICE had set a general limit of £30,000, or about $49,000, on the cost of extending life for a year. Sutent, when used for advanced kidney cancer, cost more than that, and research suggested it offered only about six months extra life. But the British media leapt on the theme of penny-pinching bureaucrats sentencing sick people to death. The issue was then picked up by the U.S. news media and by those lobbying against health care reform in the United States. An article in The New York Times last December featured Bruce Hardy, a kidney-cancer patient whose wife, Joy, said, “It’s hard to know that there is something out there that could help but they’re saying you can’t have it because of cost.” Then she asked the classic question: “What price is life?”

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous, it doesn't matter how many cut-and-paste jobs you print here about what other people claim, the health care reform bill does not introduce "rationing," nor does it kill off grandma or cancer patients.

Anonymous said...

The Ugly Truth of Obamacare: it's called rationing

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/19/obamacares_inevitable_logic_97937.html

quote:

Medical care doesn't grow on trees. It must be produced by human and physical capital, and those resources are limited. Therefore, if demand for health care services increases -- which is Obama's point in extending health insurance -- prices must go up. But somehow Obama also promises, "I won't sign a bill that doesn't reduce health care inflation".

This is magical thinking. Obama, talented as he is, can't repeal the laws of supply and demand. Costs are real. If they are incurred, someone has to pay them. But as economist Thomas Sowell points out, politicians can control costs -- by refusing to pay for the services.

It's called rationing.

Advocates of nationalization hate that word because it forces them to face an ugly truth. If government pays for more people's health care and wants to control costs, it must limit what we buy.

So much for Obama's promise not to interfere with our freedom of choice.

Anonymous said...

questions:

don't liberals believe in socialized medicine/ rationing? (sacrifice for the collective... redistribution of wealth)

also

do you prefer the govt to choose between the 2 pills for you or do you prefer to choose yourself? (i think liberals want the govt to choose for them because they believe in expansion of govt...sacrifice for the collective...)

Ed Cognoski said...

Anonymous, you do realize that your latest cut-and-paste doesn't point to anything in the bill to support your claim that it introduces rationing. It just makes a prediction that rationing will come later. Next time stick with the bill in front of us.

This is tiresome. I'll let you have the last word ... or rather I'll let one of the writers you like to cut-and-paste have the last word, as you don't seem to have an original thought of your own.

Anonymous said...

i see no reason not to oblige you. some short, good reads:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100006701/president-pantywaist-in-retreat-barack-obama-hoists-the-white-flag-over-stalinist-health-care-proposals/

http://charliefoxtrotblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/great-town-hall-sign.html