Support for the public option -- the health care reform bill -- is highest among those between 18-29, and lowest among those over 65 -- among whom only 35% support current proposals for health care reform. Seniors are particularly important right now as we approach the 2010 midterm elections -- in midterms, they tend to vote in large numbers, and were instrumental in putting a Republican majority and the Contract for America into power during Bill Clinton's first term.
Simultaneously, though, seniors benefit the most from government-mandated, government-run health insurance. While 28% of people 18-29 are uninsured, those over 65 are the least likely demographic to lack insurance, coming in at just 3.6%. Medicare is the difference. Moreover, the way that economic expansion and tax burdens have progressed over the course of the 20th century, seniors alive today have on average received $2.50 in benefits for every $1 they've paid in health-care related taxes. Not only that, but the costs of Medicare are increasing at about 8.8% a year -- high, but not as high as private insurance's 9.9% yearly cost increase.
As has been pointed out almost infinitely, senior anger over the public option can't rationally come from a fear or dismissal of government involvement in health insurance. Instead, I believe it comes from a desire to protect their benefits -- as is the case made in this Ezra Klein editorial. Health care reform, although the vast majority of it doesn't affect seniors at all (and this includes all parts of the public option, for which seniors are not eligible, since they're already covered by Medicare), does try to cut costs across the board, and some of those cuts -- even if they're just attempts to decrease non-beneficial waste spending -- may affect Medicare.
Echoing Klein, a note to everybody under 60: seniors depend on and prefer Medicare to the point that they will throw screaming fits when confronted with reforms for everybody else that affect their benefits. This is absolutely their right -- they got their Medicare benefits in the first place through vigorous participation in the political process, and by insisting that their government serve their needs. I don't think there are very many people who would begrudge the Greatest Generation a warm bed and a course of antibiotics when they're sick.
Don't we deserve it too, though? Isn't the conviction of the one population in the United States that enjoys socialized medicine a strong recommendation for a government option in health insurance? And don't they show us that we can improve our system and provide for each other through concerted effort, and American stubbornness?
Showing posts with label scare tactics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scare tactics. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday Short
Quick because I have to make dinner and I spent all afternoon taking the 212 bus to go watch pure light. (Note: also not a euphemism. Admission cost me $8.)
By my count, there are three reasons we make an industry public (i.e. give the government significant power over it). 1) when the thing the industry sells is absolutely necessary for survival and people who need it will pay any amount of money for it (i.e. water, perhaps electricity). 2) when the item or items it sells are a finite resource that has to be shared (water, roads + highways). 3) when the nature of the industry is such that a monopoly corporation in that industry would have too much control over the nation (defense, the post office).
Health insurance clearly fits all three categories: the vast majority of us rely at some point or another on some form of health care; we have come to the point where we realize that this is not an infinite resource that we can continue sinking 15% of our GDP into funding it; and increasing monopolization and control by large health insurance companies (Wellpoint, United, Blue Cross) has meant that they, not us, are setting national health policy.
The public option for national health insurance, because it would be operated by the government, would be more socialist than the current system. That's true. But no more socialist than our water system -- and you'll still be able to buy the bottled stuff if you want it.
EDIT: PS -- a veterans' organization is in the news today for defending their own socialized medicine against flat out lies by opponents of the public option (in this case Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele).
By my count, there are three reasons we make an industry public (i.e. give the government significant power over it). 1) when the thing the industry sells is absolutely necessary for survival and people who need it will pay any amount of money for it (i.e. water, perhaps electricity). 2) when the item or items it sells are a finite resource that has to be shared (water, roads + highways). 3) when the nature of the industry is such that a monopoly corporation in that industry would have too much control over the nation (defense, the post office).
Health insurance clearly fits all three categories: the vast majority of us rely at some point or another on some form of health care; we have come to the point where we realize that this is not an infinite resource that we can continue sinking 15% of our GDP into funding it; and increasing monopolization and control by large health insurance companies (Wellpoint, United, Blue Cross) has meant that they, not us, are setting national health policy.
The public option for national health insurance, because it would be operated by the government, would be more socialist than the current system. That's true. But no more socialist than our water system -- and you'll still be able to buy the bottled stuff if you want it.
EDIT: PS -- a veterans' organization is in the news today for defending their own socialized medicine against flat out lies by opponents of the public option (in this case Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele).
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Awakening?
A short link round-up, today, because oddly -- and I maybe have to chalk this up to more thoughtful parts of the media taking a little bit longer to mull over complicated issues like health care -- there seems to be an awful lot of really good writing about national health care reform in the electrowebs today.
First, a super-brilliant post on Metafilter demonstrating that some of the most untrue stories about health care reform come, in fact, directly from health insurance companies and related industry media organs. The post has links to a John Stewart interview with the originator of the "death panels" story, who one day later resigned from the board of directors of Cantel Medical.
Second -- and I'm not ashamed to say I look to a movie critic as a moral touchstone -- Roger Ebert made a pair of posts (part one, part two) that, among other things, point out that the "end" of the public option caused a big gain in health insurance industry stocks, compare "death panels" to the slogan "king of beers", and find the ethical roots of communally shared health care in Matthew 25, verses 31-46. It's kind of a tour de force.
Third -- Andrew Sullivan has collected and archived his posts on health care, which include the "views from your sickbeds" -- stories of what it's like to go through critical illness with American health insurance.
Finally, this op-ed by Gail Collins isn't as good as some of the stuff above, but she makes the point that the 'Gang of Six' that has been responsible for slowing down reform directly represents 2.77 percent of the American people. Thanks, guys! Allowing a small elite to paralyze reforms that serve the majority was exactly what James Madison had in mind when he argued for a bicameral legislature.
First, a super-brilliant post on Metafilter demonstrating that some of the most untrue stories about health care reform come, in fact, directly from health insurance companies and related industry media organs. The post has links to a John Stewart interview with the originator of the "death panels" story, who one day later resigned from the board of directors of Cantel Medical.
Second -- and I'm not ashamed to say I look to a movie critic as a moral touchstone -- Roger Ebert made a pair of posts (part one, part two) that, among other things, point out that the "end" of the public option caused a big gain in health insurance industry stocks, compare "death panels" to the slogan "king of beers", and find the ethical roots of communally shared health care in Matthew 25, verses 31-46. It's kind of a tour de force.
Third -- Andrew Sullivan has collected and archived his posts on health care, which include the "views from your sickbeds" -- stories of what it's like to go through critical illness with American health insurance.
Finally, this op-ed by Gail Collins isn't as good as some of the stuff above, but she makes the point that the 'Gang of Six' that has been responsible for slowing down reform directly represents 2.77 percent of the American people. Thanks, guys! Allowing a small elite to paralyze reforms that serve the majority was exactly what James Madison had in mind when he argued for a bicameral legislature.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
German National Treasures
This source from yesterday's globetrotting survey of world health policies has the following line in it. It describes the German system of national health insurance:
But they speak up -- the same tired, racist fears that poor or illegal immigrant children will steal health care from our embattled system -- and we stay silent, and we never remind anyone that there are sick little kids out there, and we never make the argument that it is always a good thing to give health care to any child, and that treating children who are placed into the system under false pretenses is the right thing to do, especially when it allows us to offer care for all American children.
Every stingy measure we pass to exclude certain children from public health care -- tests of citizenship, proof of parental income -- creates paperwork and increases the likelihood that some children won't make it through the process of getting covered. The humanitarian -- hell, the human system -- is that anyone under 4' gets free healthcare that we all pay for. The system would, ideally, be a reverse version of this:
Image thanks to
More on my thoughts on this new co-op compromise tomorrow.
"...premiums for children are covered by government out of general revenues, on the theory that children are not the human analogue of pets whose health care should be their owners’ (parents’) fiscal responsibility. Instead, children are viewed as national treasures whose health care should be the entire nation’s fiscal responsibility."So, whereas 0% of German children suffer without healthcare, 11% of US children were uninsured at some point in 2007. I spent a little bit of time last week leaving comments in conservative territory, and I can pretty much ventriloquize what they'd say about the statistic above: forget them, they're illegal fucking beaners (this is really how they talk on their own blogs, although some do use rudimentary code language -- I'll spare you a link to the sites themselves). And although I think the 'fuck beaners' crowd is just a slim little minority in the US today, can the rest of us honestly say as a group that we consider our children to be 'national treasures'? The far right has the advantage of ignorance and race hate -- operating under the assumption that all uninsured children are of other, detested groups (although wrongly -- 7% of white children were uninsured last year), they have deluded themselves into thinking that no child they care about is going without yearly checkups, or worse, without lifesaving care. The rest of us don't really have those illusions to excuse inaction.
But they speak up -- the same tired, racist fears that poor or illegal immigrant children will steal health care from our embattled system -- and we stay silent, and we never remind anyone that there are sick little kids out there, and we never make the argument that it is always a good thing to give health care to any child, and that treating children who are placed into the system under false pretenses is the right thing to do, especially when it allows us to offer care for all American children.
Every stingy measure we pass to exclude certain children from public health care -- tests of citizenship, proof of parental income -- creates paperwork and increases the likelihood that some children won't make it through the process of getting covered. The humanitarian -- hell, the human system -- is that anyone under 4' gets free healthcare that we all pay for. The system would, ideally, be a reverse version of this:
Image thanks to
More on my thoughts on this new co-op compromise tomorrow.
Good News or Bad News?
This made a banner headline at the NY Times -- which has apparently started to feel guilty about failing to more aggressively report the truth about the false "death panels" claim, because they slip a rehash in at the bottom. Medium-length story made short, the administration seems like they're willing to drop support for a public option in favor of a network of private, not-for-profit cooperative insurers.
What does that mean? Are health insurance co-ops -- non-profit organizations that provide an alternative to private insurers -- going to serve the US in the same way that the public option will?
Looking into it just a little bit, I can already see a few differences. 1) Negotiation power. The NYT makes this point -- small co-ops, regional or local co-ops, have less muscle to force price cutting by hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. 2) Regional inequity. The co-cops here in Los Angeles will likely be really nice -- there are a lot of motivated people and a lot of resources pressed up together. In Arkansas, though, or Georgia, they'll probably be considerably less nice, because enrollees will have less money with which to support the co-op, more problems, and the talent and dedication needed to run the co-op itself will be spread over larger areas. 3) Secret profit. Lots of 'non-profit' organizations are actually highly motivated by profits in the form of individual and executive salary -- this could provide the same incentives to deny care in order to 'keep the co-op afloat', i.e. maintain the for-profit employment of the not-for profit's employees. Because there will likely be many of these co-ops, government oversight will be a challenge.
These are significant concerns. They can be addressed -- a national purchasing system that unites the co-ops, for example, or some kind of federal sliding scale for funding them. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen. What I am not interested in, very specifically, is analysis of this nature, from Cenk Uygur. Here's the key spot where he and I part company:
Which is to say that we should all maintain strong support for a policy that will cut costs, insure the uninsured, increase the quality of care, and strengthen competition against and between insurance companies. The reason for that? Comments like this one, from a man who had to fight his insurance company to receive lifesaving and medically necessary treatment. The goal of the public option is identical to the goal of health care reform -- better care for people. Narrow-minded dependence on scorecard politics isn't going to improve our health care.
What does that mean? Are health insurance co-ops -- non-profit organizations that provide an alternative to private insurers -- going to serve the US in the same way that the public option will?
Looking into it just a little bit, I can already see a few differences. 1) Negotiation power. The NYT makes this point -- small co-ops, regional or local co-ops, have less muscle to force price cutting by hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. 2) Regional inequity. The co-cops here in Los Angeles will likely be really nice -- there are a lot of motivated people and a lot of resources pressed up together. In Arkansas, though, or Georgia, they'll probably be considerably less nice, because enrollees will have less money with which to support the co-op, more problems, and the talent and dedication needed to run the co-op itself will be spread over larger areas. 3) Secret profit. Lots of 'non-profit' organizations are actually highly motivated by profits in the form of individual and executive salary -- this could provide the same incentives to deny care in order to 'keep the co-op afloat', i.e. maintain the for-profit employment of the not-for profit's employees. Because there will likely be many of these co-ops, government oversight will be a challenge.
These are significant concerns. They can be addressed -- a national purchasing system that unites the co-ops, for example, or some kind of federal sliding scale for funding them. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen. What I am not interested in, very specifically, is analysis of this nature, from Cenk Uygur. Here's the key spot where he and I part company:
"But that's still not the main reason why the public option is so important. It's because it is a standard bearer. It is a road sign. It tells you what Obama is all about. Is he willing to compromise something he knows is essential to get a deal done so that he can brag in the next election that he got "healthcare reform" passed? Or does he actually give a damn about policy and getting it right? That is the central question."This is not a standard bearer -- this is a policy. Uygur has here joined the ranks of people who are playing political football with health care reform -- I've become used to calling them "Republicans" -- and who are interested in forging win/lose politics and short-term horse-race headlines out of this very complex issue. A public option has to be for everyone, and that includes the farm family in Iowa who doesn't trust the government, or the 46% of the nation that voted for John McCain. That the far left is willing to sniffle and return to their tents because they lost a legislative battle, and that they can only conceptualize opposition to their chosen reform as an unwillingness by their elected officials to "insist" on a public option, shows a certain lack of civic engagement.
Which is to say that we should all maintain strong support for a policy that will cut costs, insure the uninsured, increase the quality of care, and strengthen competition against and between insurance companies. The reason for that? Comments like this one, from a man who had to fight his insurance company to receive lifesaving and medically necessary treatment. The goal of the public option is identical to the goal of health care reform -- better care for people. Narrow-minded dependence on scorecard politics isn't going to improve our health care.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Gunk
There are some things about Sandy Szwarc's blog "Junkfood Science" that I really like -- but where the public option for health care reform is concerned, she's gone off the deep end.
"An ongoing debate has been unfolding among the public and medical professionals about whether the healthcare reform bill really requires mandatory counseling for every senior that will steer them to make advance healthcare decisions that could end their lives sooner, perhaps in order to lower healthcare costs."
This immediately makes my nostrils dilate, as if I have smelled fresh feces in strong sunlight. What she is opposed to is counseling? And is it even possible to force anyone into counseling outside of the legal system? I don't see any words like 'mandatory' in the legislation she quotes -- the only use of 'shall' I see is one that describes what counseling session 'shall' include, and I certainly don't see an enforcement mechanism -- i.e., what happens if people don't go. She claims that they will be identified as "noncompliant", which doesn't sound so bad to me.
While we're asking questions, though, who are "the public and medical professionals" that Sandy is talking about? They're debating, you say? Who exactly are those professionals? After a long excerpt from the legislation, she name-drops the "Bioethics Defense Fund" (I won't link you to them, because I find them pretty lame), which is an anti-stem cell, anti-choice, anti-cloning outfit that seems to be made up of as many lawyers as it is doctors. Any "Ethics Defense Fund" worth paying attention to doesn't resort to lame tactics like calling American health reform "Obamacare" or sponsoring bills to avoid "Octomom abuses". She also dings Wesley J. Smith, who works for the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute. I would expect, if health legislation threatened the individual right to life, to see real organizations like the ACLU or the Catholic Church to step in -- not these ultra-right think tanks.
But they're not wasting their time, because this fear and outrage is just made up. Seniors will benefit greatly from the public option -- from not having to change doctors like they do now during the transition to Medicaid, from not being targeted by greedy and unethical 'additional insurance' scams, and most of all, from cheaper drugs whose cost is driven down by the government's ability to negotiate prices.
In any event, the shrill, alarmist tone, completely weak argument (Counseling! The horror!), and constant dependence on untrustworthy source material all lead me to sadly pin the first Medal of Gunk on the lapel of "Junkfood Science".
Image courtesy of:
"An ongoing debate has been unfolding among the public and medical professionals about whether the healthcare reform bill really requires mandatory counseling for every senior that will steer them to make advance healthcare decisions that could end their lives sooner, perhaps in order to lower healthcare costs."
This immediately makes my nostrils dilate, as if I have smelled fresh feces in strong sunlight. What she is opposed to is counseling? And is it even possible to force anyone into counseling outside of the legal system? I don't see any words like 'mandatory' in the legislation she quotes -- the only use of 'shall' I see is one that describes what counseling session 'shall' include, and I certainly don't see an enforcement mechanism -- i.e., what happens if people don't go. She claims that they will be identified as "noncompliant", which doesn't sound so bad to me.
While we're asking questions, though, who are "the public and medical professionals" that Sandy is talking about? They're debating, you say? Who exactly are those professionals? After a long excerpt from the legislation, she name-drops the "Bioethics Defense Fund" (I won't link you to them, because I find them pretty lame), which is an anti-stem cell, anti-choice, anti-cloning outfit that seems to be made up of as many lawyers as it is doctors. Any "Ethics Defense Fund" worth paying attention to doesn't resort to lame tactics like calling American health reform "Obamacare" or sponsoring bills to avoid "Octomom abuses". She also dings Wesley J. Smith, who works for the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute. I would expect, if health legislation threatened the individual right to life, to see real organizations like the ACLU or the Catholic Church to step in -- not these ultra-right think tanks.
But they're not wasting their time, because this fear and outrage is just made up. Seniors will benefit greatly from the public option -- from not having to change doctors like they do now during the transition to Medicaid, from not being targeted by greedy and unethical 'additional insurance' scams, and most of all, from cheaper drugs whose cost is driven down by the government's ability to negotiate prices.
In any event, the shrill, alarmist tone, completely weak argument (Counseling! The horror!), and constant dependence on untrustworthy source material all lead me to sadly pin the first Medal of Gunk on the lapel of "Junkfood Science".
Image courtesy of:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodysworld1778/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
POSTSCRIPT: The people at Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact look into claims similar to those that Szwarc makes and find them to be unequivocally false.
POSTSCRIPT: The people at Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact look into claims similar to those that Szwarc makes and find them to be unequivocally false.
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