House healthcare bill is worse than nothing

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Well, the House health reform bill -- known to Republicans as the Government Takeover -- finally passed after one of Congress's longer, less enlightening debates.

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It enshrines and subsidizes the "takeover" by the investor-owned insurance industry that occurred after the failure of the Clinton reform effort in 1994 ... It doesn't regulate premiums, [so] the industry can respond to any regulation that threatens its profits by simply raising its rates.

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What does the insurance industry get out of it? Tens of millions of new customers, courtesy of the mandate and taxpayer subsidies. And not just any kind of customer, but the youngest, healthiest customers -- those least likely to use their insurance. The bill permits insurers to charge twice as much for older people as for younger ones. So older under-65's will be more likely to go without insurance, even if they have to pay fines. That's OK with the industry, since these would be among their sickest customers.

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If a similar bill emerges from the Senate and the reconciliation process, and is ultimately passed, what will happen?

First, health costs will continue to skyrocket, even faster than they are now, as taxpayer dollars are pumped into the private sector ... Yes, more people will have insurance, but it will cover less and less, and be more expensive to use.

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Here is my program for real reform:

Recommendation #1: Drop the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55. This should be an expansion of traditional Medicare, not a new program. Gradually, over several years, drop the age decade by decade, until everyone is covered by Medicare. Costs: Obviously, this would increase Medicare costs, but it would help decrease costs to the health system as a whole, because Medicare is so much more efficient (overhead of about 3% vs. 20% for private insurance). And it's a better program, because it ensures that everyone has access to a uniform package of benefits.

Recommendation #2: Increase Medicare fees for primary care doctors and reduce them for procedure-oriented specialists. Specialists such as cardiologists and gastroenterologists are now excessively rewarded for doing tests and procedures, many of which, in the opinion of experts, are not medically indicated. Not surprisingly, we have too many specialists, and they perform too many tests and procedures. Costs: This would greatly reduce costs to Medicare, and the reform would almost certainly be adopted throughout the wider health system.

Recommendation #3: Medicare should monitor doctors' practice patterns for evidence of excess, and gradually reduce fees of doctors who habitually order significantly more tests and procedures than the average for the specialty. Costs: Again, this would greatly reduce costs, and probably be widely adopted.

Recommendation #4: Provide generous subsidies to medical students entering primary care, with higher subsidies for those who practice in underserved areas of the country for at least two years. Costs: This initial, rather modest investment in ending our shortage of primary care doctors would have long-term benefits, in terms of both costs and quality of care.

Recommendation #5: Repeal the provision of the Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices ... Costs: If Medicare paid the same prices as the Veterans Affairs System, its expenditures on brand-name drugs would be a small fraction of what they are now.

Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angel...e_b_350190.html

[Pooky 3,929]

Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work.

BINGO!

I wonder if Hell suddenly got cold, just because I agree with something said on huffingtonpost.com?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The recommendations contained in the OP certainly beat the bills under consideration. There can be no doubt about that. Problem is that this approach would take major cojones to get through Congress and there are none to be had in that body.

[Pooky 3,929]

The recommendations contained in the OP certainly beat the bills under consideration. There can be no doubt about that. Problem is that this approach would take major cojones to get through Congress and there are none to be had in that body.

But they're still only baby steps. True reform needs structural changes not DIY tinkering.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The recommendations contained in the OP certainly beat the bills under consideration. There can be no doubt about that. Problem is that this approach would take major cojones to get through Congress and there are none to be had in that body.

But they're still only baby steps. True reform needs structural changes not DIY tinkering.

Congress doesn't even have the cojones for baby steps. That's the sad part.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

If it is worse than nothing, then nothing is better. So when someone complains of having nothing, one could say that things could be worse.

[Dan J 277]

The recommendations contained in the OP certainly beat the bills under consideration. There can be no doubt about that. Problem is that this approach would take major cojones to get through Congress and there are none to be had in that body.

But they're still only baby steps. True reform needs structural changes not DIY tinkering.

Congress doesn't even have the cojones for baby steps. That's the sad part.

Look at all the ] FUD that's flying with just the minor changes to the system, could you imagine what would happen if someone try to put in real changes?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

I disagree. The same could be said with the Stimulus Bill. The hardliners on the Right will dispute the success of any policy Obama or any other Democrat puts forward, regardless of the facts. Hell, we have some here who dispute the success of FDR's New Deal.

The Democrats need this bill to pass. As Bill Clinton has said before, that there will be opportunities to improve on it, but no matter how much spin from the Right, they must concede that at least Obama succeeded at getting a monumental health care bill passed. IMO, that'll go a long way in providing political clout for future policy battles.

Edited November 24, 2009 by Galt's gallstones

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

I disagree. The same could be said with the Stimulus Bill. The hardliners on the Right will dispute the success of any policy Obama or any other Democrat puts forward, regardless of the facts. Hell, we have some here who dispute the success of FDR's New Deal.

The Democrats need this bill to pass. As Bill Clinton has said before, that there will be opportunities to improve on it, but no matter how much spin from the Right, they must concede that at least Obama succeeded at getting a monumental health care bill passed. IMO, that'll go a long way in provided political clout for future policy battles.

Health care isn't about politics. It's about health care. If this bill makes things worse, we're better off without it.

[Pooky 3,929]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

I disagree. The same could be said with the Stimulus Bill. The hardliners on the Right will dispute the success of any policy Obama or any other Democrat puts forward, regardless of the facts. Hell, we have some here who dispute the success of FDR's New Deal.

The Democrats need this bill to pass. As Bill Clinton has said before, that there will be opportunities to improve on it, but no matter how much spin from the Right, they must concede that at least Obama succeeded at getting a monumental health care bill passed. IMO, that'll go a long way in provided political clout for future policy battles.

Health care isn't about politics. It's about health care. If this bill makes things worse, we're better off without it.

And if it precludes the possibility of the right measures getting past, we're better off without it.

For the Democrats to pass a Bill just to say they passed a Bill is assinine in the extreme, if it's the wrong Bill and makes things worse. What is on the table is nowhere near the measure we should be seeing and it will preclude getting it right in this generation. Bill Clinton may think that there will be opportunities to improve what they're proposing, but I don't have 100 years to wait, and the US does not do incremental change well, or quickly.

If, as Huffington believes, things go wrong, we could be looking at 8 years before another Democrat gets into the White House after Obama, so big could be the scale of the mess Healthcare leaves behind. And the chances of a Democrat held Senate and Congress with majorities big enough to get "improvements" passed? Negligible.

So tell me, how is doing something better than doing the right thing?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

I disagree. The same could be said with the Stimulus Bill. The hardliners on the Right will dispute the success of any policy Obama or any other Democrat puts forward, regardless of the facts. Hell, we have some here who dispute the success of FDR's New Deal.

The Democrats need this bill to pass. As Bill Clinton has said before, that there will be opportunities to improve on it, but no matter how much spin from the Right, they must concede that at least Obama succeeded at getting a monumental health care bill passed. IMO, that'll go a long way in provided political clout for future policy battles.

Health care isn't about politics. It's about health care. If this bill makes things worse, we're better off without it.

And if it precludes the possibility of the right measures getting past, we're better off without it.

[AlHayatZween 2]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

i'm getting skeptical of the whole thing myself. why must they mess up everything?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Perhaps we are better off without these "minor changes"?

I disagree. The same could be said with the Stimulus Bill. The hardliners on the Right will dispute the success of any policy Obama or any other Democrat puts forward, regardless of the facts. Hell, we have some here who dispute the success of FDR's New Deal.

The Democrats need this bill to pass. As Bill Clinton has said before, that there will be opportunities to improve on it, but no matter how much spin from the Right, they must concede that at least Obama succeeded at getting a monumental health care bill passed. IMO, that'll go a long way in provided political clout for future policy battles.

Health care isn't about politics. It's about health care. If this bill makes things worse, we're better off without it.

You can't divorce the two, unfortunately.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Health care isn't about politics. It's about health care profits.

Fixed that for you. If health care was about health care, we would neither have the ridiculously inefficient and ineffective system in place that we have nor would we have the discussion on this issue that we're having. We also wouldn't have hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a campaign to retain the unacceptable and unsustainable status quo.