Healthcare reform

[EvilMonkey]

WHY WON'T YOU LET THE CEO'S OF INSURANCE COMPANIES, DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS MAKE PROFITS WITHOUT FORCING THE GOVERNMENT TO POWER GRAB IT AWAY FROM THEM

Fixed that for ya.

[bmags]

Fixed that for ya.

 

Man you missed that irony i guess.

[Texsox]

 

That's what this whole thing is about. Wow.

 

About stopping law suits by deciding in advance, for every patient, which tests should be run?

 

Wow. I guess I've been reading a different thread

[EvilMonkey]

About stopping law suits by deciding in advance, for every patient, which tests should be run?

 

Wow. I guess I've been reading a different thread

About stopping 'runaway health care' by deciding in advance, for every patient, which tests should be run.

[Texsox]

About stopping 'runaway health care' by deciding in advance, for every patient, which tests should be run.

 

Which is impossible and poor medicine.

[kapkomet]

Which is impossible and poor medicine.

Which is what Congress is proposing.

[Balta1701]

Which is what Congress is proposing.

No changes at all? You're right, that is what a good chunk of Congress is proposing.

[Texsox]

Which is what Congress is proposing.

 

So critics of government health program reforms believe there needs to be tort reform that would stop Doctors from ordering tests to CYA.

 

Congress is proposing just that.

[kapkomet]

So critics of government health program reforms believe there needs to be tort reform that would stop Doctors from ordering tests to CYA.

 

Congress is proposing just that.

Oh, really? In all actuality, they're going to cut tests "to save money" which DOESN'T allow doctors to CYA, which would therefore INCREASE tort issues, which then in reality pays back the trial lawyers that got this idiot elected in the first place, in spades. I see how this works.

 

Let's cut costs, increase tort liability issues, which then produces an environment that is 100 times worse then what we have today because everything is going to be sued the s*** out of it AND rationed at the same time. What a GREAT plan. Which, by the way, by its own side admits still won't cover a lot of the very people that need the coverage the most.

[Texsox]

TEx, do you hear the words 'tort reform' and automatically think that it means nobody is ever gonna be able to file a wrongfull death suit or malpractice suit ever again? Or do you hear that if they ARE able to file that the award would be capped at some super low figure like $10,000? I am not advocating any specific plan for reform, but you can't argue that there doesn't need to be some kind of reform. C-section births are on the rise because doctors fear a natural birth complications. Tests are ordered that aren't needed, or may be needed for that 1 in 50 million chance of some super rare disease, for everyone, just to CYA. That costs time and money which can be better spent on other things. Tort reform needs to happen, in some form, along with numerous other changes. Some of which I posted a few posts back. It is not the end-all, but it has to be part of the final package, whatever it is.

 

 

Oh, really? In all actuality, they're going to cut tests "to save money" which DOESN'T allow doctors to CYA, which would therefore INCREASE tort issues, which then in reality pays back the trial lawyers that got this idiot elected in the first place, in spades. I see how this works.

 

Let's cut costs, increase tort liability issues, which then produces an environment that is 100 times worse then what we have today because everything is going to be sued the s*** out of it AND rationed at the same time. What a GREAT plan. Which, by the way, by its own side admits still won't cover a lot of the very people that need the coverage the most.

 

I've been following Alpha and his reasoning for the past day or so. Both of you are hard core critics of these proposals. Alpha (the GOP mainstay) wants fewer "unnecessary tests". Earlier, SS expressed the fact that when it is free, demand rises which is just fiscally wrong. Which I agree with and would like to see some co-pay to at least slow some people down. So it seems that your opinion of how this will work, would address their concerns.

 

I would also like to see fewer tests, but at the same time, not by predicting in advance, for every patient, what they will need.

 

This really highlights how difficult an issue it is. There is even disagreement within the party faithful of how it should be formed.

[Rex Kickass]

ETA: There's a hell of a lot of stuff that the Dems went with on the GOP controlled Congress. And now the Dems are pissed about how the GOP isn't going along? It's because what they are ramming down our throat is unprecedented.

 

If this stuff was being "rammed down your throat," there wouldn't be all this drama in the Senate Finance Comm. There wouldn't have been a stimulus bill that was 50% tax breaks. The Democrats won the election - and in 2008, they won it largely on the basis of these ideas. They also won it largely on the basis that they would work with anyone willing to contribute. The Democrats have been willing to compromise on a lot of things, and have worked to find common ground with the GOP - so much so that they've even started to alienate a good chunk of their base about it. However, there's only so much bipartisan work that can be done when the only compromise the opposition is willing to accept is "no."

[mr_genius]

The Democrats won the election - and in 2008, they won it largely on the basis of these ideas. They also won it largely on the basis that they would work with anyone willing to contribute. The Democrats have been willing to compromise on a lot of things, and have worked to find common ground with the GOP - so much so that they've even started to alienate a good chunk of their base about it. However, there's only so much bipartisan work that can be done when the only compromise the opposition is willing to accept is "no."

 

The Democrats have 60 in the Senate and completely control the house. A Democrat is president. The fact is the Democrats are not even together on health care.

[Rex Kickass]

The Democrats have 60 in the Senate and completely control the house. A Democrat is president. The fact is the Democrats are not even together on health care.

 

Actually, they currently have 59... and until a couple weeks ago, only 58 available to vote as Byrd was ill. That includes two senators who do not belong to the Democratic party, one of whom hasn't been a terribly reliable vote as of late.

[mr_genius]

Actually, they currently have 59... and until a couple weeks ago, only 58 available to vote as Byrd was ill. That includes two senators who do not belong to the Democratic party, one of whom hasn't been a terribly reliable vote as of late.

 

You're not going to get 100 dem senators. If they can't get stuff done when they completely control the government it's their own fault. Just put another Kennedy in the final 60 seat. There would still be problems passing a health care program. So many excuses, nothing is ever the Democrats fault. It's getting old fast.

 

Maybe they should address unemployment then fix health care.

Edited August 30, 2009 by mr_genius

[Rex Kickass]

You're not going to get 100 dem senators. If they can't get stuff done when they completely control the government it's their own fault. Just put another Kennedy in the final 60 seat. There would still be problems passing a health care program. So many excuses, nothing is ever the Democrats fault. It's getting old fast.

 

Maybe they should address unemployment then fix health care.

 

It's simple and we'll see if it gets done after the recess. It's called reconciliation. That only requires 51 votes and most of the public option bill can be passed with that legislative tool.

 

[mr_genius]

It's simple and we'll see if it gets done after the recess. It's called reconciliation. That only requires 51 votes and most of the public option bill can be passed with that legislative tool.

 

We'll see if the Dems go for it.

Edited August 30, 2009 by mr_genius

[Texsox]

You're not going to get 100 dem senators. If they can't get stuff done when they completely control the government it's their own fault. Just put another Kennedy in the final 60 seat. There would still be problems passing a health care program. So many excuses, nothing is ever the Democrats fault. It's getting old fast.

 

Maybe they should address unemployment then fix health care.

 

Governing with restraint. When the political tides turn, I hope the GOP acts in the same measured, prudent, manner.

[mr_genius]

Governing with restraint. When the political tides turn, I hope the GOP acts in the same measured, prudent, manner.

 

I haven't seen any restraint in governing for years. Unfortunately it's been a whiny, sold out to bribes, make excuses, blame everyone else, train wreck of a two party system for a while now.

[Balta1701]

It's simple and we'll see if it gets done after the recess. It's called reconciliation. That only requires 51 votes and most of the public option bill can be passed with that legislative tool.

Actually, the reconciliation process here would be no where near simple. You can use reconciliation for some things effectively, like the Bush Tax cuts, because those are explicit budgetary matters. You can use reconciliation for at least a portion of this bill because money for it did appear in the Obama budget. But you're going to have an absolute devil of a time under Senate rules trying to find a way to fit in the structure of the public option, new rules for insurance companies, the setup of the panels for Medicare, etc., things that aren't explicitly budgetary items.

[Balta1701]

The NYT today included some details of all the obscure rules governing reconciliation.

So how much of the proposed health care reforms could plausibly fit into a reconciliation bill? The answer seems to be: quite a lot, though nobody knows for sure.

 

Knowledgeable analysts from both parties believe that these important elements of reform will probably pass muster because of their budgetary impact: expansion of Medicaid for the poor; subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance; new taxes to pay for the trillion-dollar program; Medicare cuts to help finance the program; mandates on individuals to buy insurance and on employers to offer coverage; and tax credits to help small businesses provide insurance.

 

Even the public plan so reviled by Republicans could probably qualify, especially if it is given greater power than currently planned to dictate the prices it will pay to hospitals, doctors, drug companies and other providers, thus saving the government lots of money in subsidies.

 

Greater uncertainty surrounds two other critical elements: new rules requiring insurance companies to accept all applicants and charge them the same premiums without regard to medical condition, and the creation of new exchanges in which people forced to buy their own insurance could find cheaper policies than are currently available.

 

Republicans claim that they want to make medical insurance and care cheaper and give ordinary Americans more choices. But given their drive to kill health reform at any cost, they might well argue that these are programmatic changes whose budgetary impact is “merely incidental.” Democrats would very likely counter that they are so intertwined with other reforms that they are “a necessary term or condition” for other provisions that do affect spending or revenues, which could allow them to be kept in the bill.

 

Nobody knows how the Senate parliamentarian, an obscure official who advises the presiding officer, would rule on any of these complicated issues. But if he were to take a narrow view and eliminate important features, it could leave the reform package riddled with holes — perhaps providing subsidies to buy insurance on exchanges that do not exist, for example. Thus there are plans afoot to use a second bill to pass whatever reforms will not fit under the rubric of reconciliation, but those would be subject to filibuster and would have to depend on their general popularity (insurance reforms are enormously popular) to win 60 votes for passage.

 

Another hurdle is that the reconciliation legislation covers only the next five years, while the Democratic plans are devised to be deficit-neutral over 10 years. The practical effect is that the Democrats will almost surely need to find added revenues or budget cuts within the first five years.

 

Another Senate rule, which applies whether reconciliation is used or not, requires that the reforms enacted now not cause an increase in the deficit for decades to come, a difficult but probably not impossible hurdle to surmount.

You know, the Senate really is a mess.

[kapkomet]

Rex, you want to make the government all cheer-IO, and it's not. The Democrats, just like mr genius said, control the whole shooting match. If they can't get it done, they can't get it done, because THE PEOPLE don't want it. Pelosi's puppies (aka, the Blue Dog Democrats) are running scared because they know the people don't want this s***. Then you've got Schmucky out there saying, fine, reconciliation it is. It's their only hope of passing this thing. If you Democrats want this so bad, accept the piece of s*** for what it is and do it. Just remember your backsides during election day.

[Balta1701]

Rex, you want to make the government all cheer-IO, and it's not. The Democrats, just like mr genius said, control the whole shooting match. If they can't get it done, they can't get it done, because THE PEOPLE don't want it. Pelosi's puppies (aka, the Blue Dog Democrats) are running scared because they know the people don't want this s***. Then you've got Schmucky out there saying, fine, reconciliation it is. It's their only hope of passing this thing. If you Democrats want this so bad, accept the piece of s*** for what it is and do it. Just remember your backsides during election day.

It's really impressive how you wrote that whole thing without alluding at all to which side the money is on.

[kapkomet]

It's really impressive how you wrote that whole thing without alluding at all to which side the money is on.

Stimulus money? There's more ads out there supporting health INSURANCE reform then against it. Just ask ABC and NBC, who won't air ads critical of our emperor, Barackus the Great.

 

If you really follow the money trail, there's a crap load of money coming from the "let's "reform(sic)"" crowd. And if you really dug deep, some of this is taxpayer money, I'd bet. Kind of like advertising on Craigslist to become an SEIU hack to show up for town halls. Money, indeed.

[Balta1701]

Stimulus money? There's more ads out there supporting health INSURANCE reform then against it. Just ask ABC and NBC, who won't air ads critical of our emperor, Barackus the Great.

 

If you really follow the money trail, there's a crap load of money coming from the "let's "reform(sic)"" crowd. And if you really dug deep, some of this is taxpayer money, I'd bet. Kind of like advertising on Craigslist to become an SEIU hack to show up for town halls. Money, indeed.

The health care industry doesn't have to spend its money running ads. They just buy Congresspeople.

[kapkomet]

The health care industry doesn't have to spend its money running ads. They just buy Congresspeople.

Good. The more, the merrier. And it's happening on the other side as well. Just wait until the lawyers get their hands on the doctors who take orders from the government to cut tests and orders and have no recourse to lawsuits when they come back and say that they were ordered by the government to cut tests. You talk about a gigantic hole and payback to a certain group of assholes.