Because Democrats are too fucking spineless (I use the first person plural since it’s commonly known that all Slog writers, readers, and commenters are Democrats of some stripe. Feel free to correct me if/when I am wrong).
All polling shows that most people in this country want health care reform, want it now, and want a strong public option to balance the profit-driven health insurance companies whose real goal is to make as much money as possible by paying for as little as possible.
But the Dems in the House, the Senate and the White House lack the courage of their convictions, and our elections, to tell the Republicans (WHO LOST!) , the lobbyists, the right-wing media, and the tea-baggers and town-hall-meeting shouters to fuck off, we’re going to do what we know is right, and what we were elected to do. Vote against it if you want, we don’t care. We won, and vae victis.
Nope, they’re spineless nice-guy cowards who believe that they have to bring their idiot opponents on board, even when that really means losing, since the idiot opponents are absolutists and morons who disregard facts for ideology every time. Compromise with them means watering down anything worth doing till it’s not worth doing. Since the beginning of the Bush II Years, “bipartisanship” has been code for “Democrats go Along with Republicans.” The Dems got in the habit of this when they were in the minority, and now cannot shake the habit now that they could just DO WHAT WE ELECTED THEM TO FUCKING DO.
The public option will be dropped. The health insurance industry will continue to make its hundreds of millions of dollars (and to donate more to the Rs than the Ds) while scores of millions of Americans go without insurance and other Americans will continue to be bankrupted by their medical bills.
@51: “Misinformation?” No. “Abbreviation?” Yes. I just wasn’t in the mood to get into the long explanation. (Your explanation, by the way, is too short to really even qualify as the “short” explanation.)
If Obama backs away from the “Change” he promised and there’s a suggestion that the extremist right wing nuts have actually blocked meaningful Health care/Insurance reform, Watch Out.
OK, so what do we do about it? For those of us who have jobs so we can’t give up our lives to stand out in front of TV cameras with idiotic slogans on them. For those of us who have already written our congressmen (I assume all of you have done this already). For those of us who voted for these pussies but can’t vote directly on the bill (thank you representative democracy). What do we do? Got any tips Chicago fan? Or Dan? Or Charles? Or any of you? Please help! I want this to pass. I think it’s important but I’ve done everything I can think of.
@54 – you make it hurt.
That’s what you do.
You organize boycotts against the advertisers on the media carrying their water.
You have your friends every time you go out to a bar grab some of those postcards and HANDWRITE a free postcard from the bar to nearby members of House/Senate insist on single payer national health care and tell them your vote depends on it. You use a reverse directory to pop in names, just like the Talibangelist Tin Foil Brigade does, from their districts, to make artificial astrotruf in non-Seattle areas.
You fight dirty. And you refuse to take no for an answer.
Hmmm, I want health care reform by the likes of people who can’t express an opinion without vulgarity … not. I voted for Bush twice. My problem with him is that he tried to cozy up to DEMOCRATS by spending on their stupid programs (education, Amtrack, the arts, etc). In turn they spit in his face. The next conservative I vote for and support will not be compassionate; he will be a true fiscal conservative. As to the polls, they consistently and and unequivocally say that Americans DO NOT WANT SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE! Everyone knows health insurance needs reform, but only minority want the public option and even fewer want single payer.
@56 – so, you admit you hate America.
Now that we have that established, Comrade, why should we EVER bother to listen to you?
all you vulgar geniuses have not addressed legitimate concerns raised about the bill. Which is why you all are considered irrelevant to the debate.
GIMMEE GIMMEE GIMMEE
Ok righties so perhaps you could enlighten us as to what ‘reform’ looks like without a public option? You are aware that health care costs have gone up roughly 5 times the rate of inflation over the last 10 years yes? Do you imagine sans-public option this trend will abate? Do you imagine that you will be able to continue coasting oblivious to the cost of your health care indefinitely given this trend? You are aware that corporate bureaucrats are making decisions about your health care presently yes? In what way shape or form are they better qualified for this than public bureaucrats? Does it not seem likely that the corporate bureaucrat with an eye to profits is going to be considerably less likely to make the decision about your health care that benefits you?
Not so “fucking” fast…. Dems have to figure out how to pay for what they want, AND stop expecting somebody else to pay.
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“You are aware that health care costs have gone up roughly 5 times the rate of inflation over the last 10 years yes?”
I’m glad you asked.
And your question is the most important one in the whole issue, and one that Obama has totally not addressed.
When consumers pay for a product themselves they care how much it costs and will look for a better bargain. Providers respond to this pressure by looking for ways to keep cost down. It is Economics 101 and it always works.
That feedback mechanism has been broken in medicine. Once insurance came along the consumer/patient didn’t care or usually even know how much the ‘product’ cost. Providers realized this and cost spiraled. Yearly limits added more perverse incentive to spend health care dollars wastefully because they would be ‘lost’ if not used.
The solution to rising costs will be to return some incentive to the patient to be a wise consumer.
Throwing millions more people into the “I don’t care what it costs, I’m covered” pool will not help.
Neither will having the government pick up a big piece of the tab and absorbing the pain.
The system has to be reworked so people who make healthy lifestyle choices and are wise healthcare consumers once again see an economic behefit to themselves and those who do not see a financial penalty.
Providers will respond to newly enlightened financial stakeholder consumers by finding ways to hold cost in line.
A perfect illustration is LASIK surgery. It is usually not covered by insurance. Cost have dropped steadily since the procedure was introduced. What other healthcare product is that true of?
@62 –
When consumers pay for a product themselves they care how much it costs and will look for a better bargain. Providers respond to this pressure by looking for ways to keep cost down. It is Economics 101 and it always works.
How many choices of electricity or water providers do you have? Does every employer provide a choice of health care providers? Do you think most Americans are really going to leave their employer to go to another one because the other employer has a better health plan? Do you expect that most Americans have the luxury to make employment choices based on the employer’s healthcare benefits?
Look, I know in your fantasy libertarian world everyone can find and have the most perfect pony ever through the power of the free market but you realize that real life doesn’t actually work like that, yes?
Ok so how exactly is the system going to be ‘reworked’ to return some incentive to the consumer? People are screaming about the prospect of paying more in taxes to cover more uninsured do you imagine they would not be screaming twice as loud if they had to actually pay more out of pocket for health care that is now miraculously covered by employer-provided insurance? Merely showing them the bill would not mean squat. To my knowledge many if not most providers do that now, I know mine does.
And it is entirely inaccurate to state that Obama has ‘totally not addressed’ spiraling costs. The number one reason for having a public option is to have a heavyweight in the market place that can negotiate prices and force private insurers to become more efficient to compete. This is a concrete proposal for limiting the growth of health care costs. The right does not have anything like a legitimate counter-proposal. In reality as the right consists of those who have been profiting nicely from spiraling costs (and those they have duped with red-scare tactics) they have no interest in limiting future growth and all they are really concerned with is short-circuiting any attempts to do this.
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Having a “heavyweight in the market place that can negotiate prices and force private insurers to become more efficient to compete” is not free market capitalism, it is state directed SOCIALISM. You may have studied the Soviet Union in history, it collapsed.
That is a crucial difference between Republicans and Democraps, between Romney and Obama, between small business owners who are the backbone of our economy and social workers-community organizers-bureaucrats-public ‘service’ employees who live off the fat of the land- one has and the other totally lacks a fundamental understanding of and intrinsic feeling for how the economy works (and doesn’t).
Excuse me, Why don’t you tell your President and Congress-persons what you think of their chicken-shit behavior? Write a letter to your Senators, House Representatives, and President. I did.
Yeah dude red-baiting is always a good way to win an argument. Our glorious free market system costs us double the next most expensive system in the developed world per capita (and that is with 45 million people being uninsured). Doesn’t exactly look like the free market is doing what it is supposed to do in the area of health care. Question was how are you going to create an incentive for people to bargain shop for health care? And apparently you have no answer. A public provider is an actual, proven (take a look at those ‘socialist’ systems that don’t appear to be too near collapse), means of keeping costs down. You don’t have a viable alternative, just ideology that has no touch with reality.
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If my employer provided insurance has a $3000 deductible I am going to care how, and if, that $3000 gets spent. I am going to question my doctor and hospital and exert what influence I have to get the best deal. And 300 million other American doing the same thing will be a huge force to motivate providers to get costs down. Much more effective than Obama dictating to providers to “cut costs”.
If when I don’t use any or as much of my coverage I get a bonus in my paycheck that I can spend as I want I will never have a procedure again just because I haven’t maxed out my yearly benefit level.
If my copay or share of premiums goes up (enough to matter) when by BMI does I might drag my fat ass off the couch and get a little exercise, and if I don’t I can pay a fairer share for my coverage.
If my employer has a choice between less expensive plans like the one above and more expensive traditional plans he will gravitate toward the less costly option. And hundreds of thousands of employers across the nation doing the same thing will exert a huge influence on insurance companies to get lean and mean. Much more effective than Obama railing about how evil insurance companies are.
If a $1 a bottle tax is added to soda and $3 to a pint of Ben&Jerry’s and $2 to a bag of chips (and that money goes straight to fund Medicare or dental care for children etc etc) I may start thinking about what I shove down my gullet and if I choose to consume anyway I will at least be chipping in a more proportional share of the inevitable cost of treating my diabetes and heart disease and back trouble. (and we’ll tax cigarettes and alcohol more as well…) (a ton of money could be raised taxing nutritionally empty food- people could pony up if they want to eat the crap or do without and be much better off…)
75% of health care dollars go to treat easily preventable lifestyle related disease. It is time to quit treating obesity and lifestyle related type 2 diabetes and heart disease etc etc as things that just happen to innocent people and hold ourselves financially accountable for our lifestyle choices.
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We don’t have a free market health care system.
Insurance is regulated to death, required to provide various coverages based on the whims of 50 state legislatures, unable to compete across state lines, etc.
Providers are also heavily regulated, permits required to install new equipment and build clinics and hospitals- all designed to avoid competition and duplication of service.
Before you criticize free market health care you should let the nation try it.
Also require everyone to purchase at least a basic plan covering catastrophic illness. That would flush a lot of the currently uninsured into the system.
Also make the tax code treat insurance provided by an employer and insurance purchased by an individual the same; either tax it or don’t but treat both the same.
Also institute tort reform. Malpractice lawsuits are about the sorriest way imaginable to deal with substandard care. Set up a system that actually regulates providers and weeds out or gets training for substandard providers and is not a lottery for lawyers and plaintiffs.
There are a lot of things that could be done to vastly improve the system (that desperately needs to be improved) without turning it all over to the incompetent hands of the government.
Hmm I’ll bet a $3000 deductible would be a real enticement to prospective employees. I somehow doubt that idea is going to go over too much better with those alleged 80% who are theoretically satisfied with their health plans than anything Obama is proposing.
This is pretty straightforward: the free market system is about making a profit, profits first. Treating sick people is not going to be profitable no matter what, hence if truly left to their own devices insurers would efficiently strip anyone who is actually sick from their rolls. That is what you would have without any regulation whatsoever and that is really why it is pretty absurd to suggest that you could have a quality health care system based on the unregulated free market.
And your proposed taxes sound kind of, well, socialistic.
As an un-affiliated with libertarian leanings I have to say the reponse from the left is just down right funny. There were 8 years of equating Bush with Hitler, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Monkee, etc….. the demand for reasonable speach today from the left is just down right hypocrtical.
On the health care debate, there is no doubt we eventually need to do something but the current proposal without any hint of tort reform stinks of politics with the democratic parties highest contributer getting a free pass.
BTW – I fucking hate Bush!
Damn! I was looking forward to seeing baristas heads explode when another 20% of their paychecks vanished to force them to get insurance!
Aside from the political bullshit, there are too many other hurdles to health care reform, namely the need to reform how doctors practice health care in this country, i.e. be more like doctors and less like legalized drug dealers. And there’s no way Big Pharma allows that.
As long as the status quo remains on that end, health care will remain too expensive for a public option to be feasible.
I really can’t believe there are people on the left so deluded as to want to pin the blame for this on Obama. Really guys? What does Obama have that most presidents over the last century have had? Teddy Roosevelt tried, FDR tries, Truman tried, Eisenhower tried, Nixon tried, Carter tried, Clinton tried, and now Obama tried. He’s now moved this so much farther than anybody before him, the fact that any bill has made it out of committee, much less will soon get it to the floor of the House/Senate for a vote is damn impressive considering the historical benchmarks of healthcare reform.
And Slog might as well fuck off, I don’t hold them personally accountable but they fall into the having same idiotic ideas that the left gets trapped into it seems every time they ascend to political dominance. You’re too fucking stupid and short-sighted to actually fucking support a president when they need it, instead you’re all too eager to completely drop support of them and call them the fucking enemy at any real or even perceived fucking slight.
Congratulations, I really hope you’re proud of yourselves. Your worthless spine disappeared as soon as Obama started to face the real constraints on his position and left him with barely any support to pass his agenda. I’m sooo sorry that the fact Obama still doesn’t have his office of legal council nominee approved yet is so terrible for you that you decide childishly throw a temper tantrum at that.
I wish you’d cite the polls you say show “most people in this country want health care reform, want it now, and want a strong public option”. Every poll I’ve seen indicates we are LOSING and LOSING BADLY.
How could they screw up so badly on a message of wanting to GIVE people something?! Un-frickin-believable.
Obama tried to pass the buck off to Congress, the most unpopular institution in America right now. I never understood why he would let a dysfunctional operation as the U.S. Congress handle something so explosive to his own office. His ass was on the line from the first day he decided to tackle health care. But he didn’t get out in front of the problem, he tried to shift responsibility for it, and he’s getting hammered.
He keeps saying “it’s not about me.” It is about you. Your the president. This is America. Everything is about you. No one gives a shit about Congress unless they want to bitch about how much they hate their taxes or the government. Nobody follows Congress. Nobody cares about them whatsoever.
Your responsible for everything that is done while you are in office. Everything. The Republicans raised the stakes on health care reform. You either fold now, or you go all-in. You can’ t just hope to limp in, and figure the congressional Democrats will sort things out. You need to get out in front, put your ass on the line, and slam this thing through, and fight it out in mid-term elections 2010.
How did Civil Rights or the Environmental Movement happen? It was a mass popular push, broad-based, bottom up, that forced legislative change against legislators’ will (Civil Rights Act 1968 and Clean Air/Water Acts). It didn’t come from the top down. Real change never, ever comes from the top down. Business interests want the public to be quiet and docile, teaching us, subtly, that the extent of our political involvement is to vote in elections. And although Obama was elected on a wave of popular support, insurance and pharma are beating down doors with $1 mil per day. But we know the majority of people support the reforms Obama proposes. WE NEED TO STAND UP AND DEMONSTRATE MAJOR SUPPORT FOR THESE REFORMS.
Business wants you to be disgruntled and politically inactive. And so, it works if you give up on the Democrats, or any representative. This isn’t over yet. I believe Obama is practically begging the majority to get up and actively show support for real health care reform. It is a test. It’s a test to see whether we’ll stand up, and Obama went all-in on it. So get off your blogging ass and help a brother out.