The television ads show a Canadian woman who claims to have had a brain tumor. She was told she would have to wait six months for treatment in Canada. She says that if she had waited for treatment in Canada she would have died. She mortgaged her home to pay for surgery at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. She then goes on to condemn the Canadian health care system, and implies that the Obama health care reform will lead to a Canadian style health care system. This ad is pure dishonest garbage. It is an example of the depths to which the despicable American health insurance industry is willing to stoop to try and defeat health care reform and a public option. Doesn’t is bother anybody that the whole case of the health insurance industry against health care reform has been built on lies?
The truth is that the woman, Shona Holmes, did not have a brain tumor. There was no emergency that required prompt surgery to save her life. According to the Mayo Clinic, the woman had a “Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland." Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not tumors; they are slow-growing benign cysts. The chair of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., stated that such a cyst "is not typically life-threatening." Neurosurgeons in Montreal and Toronto described Holmes’ claims as exaggerated and stated that her condition was not a medical emergency. She certainly could have waited six months to have the cyst removed. I do not know why she came to the U.S. for treatment or if she was paid to make the fraudulent commercial.
People throughout Canada are outraged by this phony commercial criticizing Canadian health care. The Toronto Star published a letter to the editor from an Ontario resident who had a real brain tumor and who described the care she received in the Canadian health care system as being of "exceptional quality." Her letter concluded with the comment: "I know our health care system works and if Holmes didn't have a problem with her physician what exactly are her motives for taking part in this media spectacle?"
Aside from being untruthful and misleading, the commercial by Shona Holmes is irrelevant. President Obama’s health care reform plan does not envision a Canadian health care system. While many of us would prefer a single-payer system such as they have in Canada, that is not what the President and the Democrats in Congress are offering. They are proposing a plan which, along with a number of major reforms in the current system, offers a governmental form of health insurance as just one option among many. There will still be plenty of private insurance plans to choose from. If the public option drives private insurance options out of business, it will be because they have failed to offer something better.
One of the most disgusting things about the effort by the health insurance industry to defeat health care reform is their constant false claim that health care in Canada is slow, inefficient, and ineffective. In fact, health care in Canada is outstanding, and the people of Canada are very pleased with it. It is significantly better than health care in The United States.
A recent Canadian Press Harris-Decima Survey shows that 82 percent of Canadians are quite pleased with their health care and believe that their system is far better than American health care. The same is true of European countries with universal health care. According to an August 2009 Gallup Survey, 79 percent of people in European countries with universal health care are very satisfied with their high quality health care. The claim that Europeans are dissatisfied with their systems because of long waits for treatment is a lot of baloney.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Happy With Health Insurance?
One hears repeatedly that 85 percent of Americans are “happy” with their health insurance. So why do we need health insurance reform? Well, the 85 percent figure is a phony, misleading statistic. It does not mean that 85 percent of all Americans are delighted with their health insurance and that a disgruntled 15 percent of the American people are the only ones who want to change our health insurance laws; far from it.
In the first place, the pollsters questioned only people covered by health insurance. The 85 percent of people who are happy does not include the 47 million people who have no health insurance. Those people certainly are not “happy” with their health insurance. Moreover, 15 percent of the people who have health insurance are not “happy” with their coverage. In addition, all of the polls giving the 85 percent figure include people on Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-run plans. According to Gallup, approximately 22-33 percent of the respondents in the polls are on Medicare or Medicaid. Of course those people are satisfied with their health insurance. The Census Bureau tells us that in 2008, only 66.7 percent of the people polled had private health insurance--and that number is going down rapidly because thousands of businesses are dropping it as a benefit of employment.
So it is not 85 percent of all Americans that are happy with their private health insurance. Do the math. When you subtract all of the people who are unhappy with their private health insurance, all of the people who have no insurance, and all of the people on Medicare etc., you come out with about 18 percent of Americans who are happy with their private health insurance. That is a long way from the dishonest figure of 85 percent.
If 85 percent of Americans were “happy” with health insurance, you can be sure that there would be no support for enactment of health insurance reform with a public option. But a new study by SurveyUSA finds that the public supports enactment of a public option by 77 percent. In a June 2009 survey, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 76 percent of those questioned favored a public option. Why such high percentages if 85 percent are happy with their health insurance? Why such high percentages if the controversy over health care reform has supposedly destroyed President Obama’s approval ratings?
According to a new CBS News/New York Times poll out September 24, 2009, President Obama’s approval rating is 56 percent. An October 1, 2009, Gallup Poll gives the President a 54 percent approval rating. By my arithmetic, that is a majority. When you consider the fact that he was elected with only 52 percent, and when you consider the hammering he has taken from the health insurance industry, the Republicans in Congress, Fox News fanatics, talk radio morons, town hall screamers, and tea party lunatics, he is still doing pretty well.
Compare the President’s approval rating to the ratings given to House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, Senate Minority Claghorn, Mitch McConnell, and the Republicans in Congress. According to a September Harris Poll, Boehner and McConnell each received an 18 percent approval rating. The Republicans in Congress got a 27 percent approval rating, while 70 percent disapproved. In a September CBS News/New York Times Poll, the Republicans in Congress received a 30 percent approval rating.
It is, of course, no surprise that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress. The Republicans are fighting on the side of health insurance companies to deny Americans any health care reform at all. The public knows that President Obama is trying to do something to improve health insurance and health care in America. They know that the Republicans are doing nothing.
In the first place, the pollsters questioned only people covered by health insurance. The 85 percent of people who are happy does not include the 47 million people who have no health insurance. Those people certainly are not “happy” with their health insurance. Moreover, 15 percent of the people who have health insurance are not “happy” with their coverage. In addition, all of the polls giving the 85 percent figure include people on Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-run plans. According to Gallup, approximately 22-33 percent of the respondents in the polls are on Medicare or Medicaid. Of course those people are satisfied with their health insurance. The Census Bureau tells us that in 2008, only 66.7 percent of the people polled had private health insurance--and that number is going down rapidly because thousands of businesses are dropping it as a benefit of employment.
So it is not 85 percent of all Americans that are happy with their private health insurance. Do the math. When you subtract all of the people who are unhappy with their private health insurance, all of the people who have no insurance, and all of the people on Medicare etc., you come out with about 18 percent of Americans who are happy with their private health insurance. That is a long way from the dishonest figure of 85 percent.
If 85 percent of Americans were “happy” with health insurance, you can be sure that there would be no support for enactment of health insurance reform with a public option. But a new study by SurveyUSA finds that the public supports enactment of a public option by 77 percent. In a June 2009 survey, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 76 percent of those questioned favored a public option. Why such high percentages if 85 percent are happy with their health insurance? Why such high percentages if the controversy over health care reform has supposedly destroyed President Obama’s approval ratings?
According to a new CBS News/New York Times poll out September 24, 2009, President Obama’s approval rating is 56 percent. An October 1, 2009, Gallup Poll gives the President a 54 percent approval rating. By my arithmetic, that is a majority. When you consider the fact that he was elected with only 52 percent, and when you consider the hammering he has taken from the health insurance industry, the Republicans in Congress, Fox News fanatics, talk radio morons, town hall screamers, and tea party lunatics, he is still doing pretty well.
Compare the President’s approval rating to the ratings given to House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, Senate Minority Claghorn, Mitch McConnell, and the Republicans in Congress. According to a September Harris Poll, Boehner and McConnell each received an 18 percent approval rating. The Republicans in Congress got a 27 percent approval rating, while 70 percent disapproved. In a September CBS News/New York Times Poll, the Republicans in Congress received a 30 percent approval rating.
It is, of course, no surprise that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress. The Republicans are fighting on the side of health insurance companies to deny Americans any health care reform at all. The public knows that President Obama is trying to do something to improve health insurance and health care in America. They know that the Republicans are doing nothing.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Why Tax The Rich?
Conservatives such as George Will complain that it is a reflex action by liberals in Congress to soak the rich in order to pay for health care reform. They point-out that the top 1 percent of income earners in America pays 45 percent of the income taxes. Conservatives claim that Congress is engaged in a Robin Hood form of class warfare which was never authorized by the constitution. They want to retain the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and prevent surcharges on the rich to pay for health care reform.
If I were making the tax laws, I would not simply repeal the Bush tax cuts. I would greatly increase taxes on the rich. Why? Because there is too much poverty, too much hunger, too much sickness, too much disparity between rich and poor here in America, the land of wealth and opportunity. I doubt that most people are aware of the enormous gap between the wealth of the top 1 percent of people in America and the rest of us. Those very wealthy people have excellent health insurance and health care. Perhaps that is why we hear so much drivel about how America has the best health care in the world. We don’t, but very wealthy Americans probably do.
What George Will and the right-wingers fail to mention is that according to the Census Bureau and a study by the Sociology Department of the University of California, as of 2004, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 42.2 percent of all privately held financial wealth in America, and the next 19 percent owned 50.3 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned 85 percent of the wealth in America! Their wealth was 190 times greater than that of the median U.S. household. The top 10 percent had 85 to 90 percent of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate.
Conservatives have been trying to eliminate inheritance taxes, which they call “death taxes.” According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6 percent of Americans inherit more than $100,000. Another 1.1 percent inherit $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9 percent of the people in America inherit nothing.
Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in the 21-year-period between 1983 and 2004, 42 percent of it went to the top 1 percent. A whopping 94 percent went to the top 20 percent, which of course means that the bottom 80 percent received only 6 percent of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s.
A 2007 study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the top 1 percent of income earners in America nearly quadrupled their share of the nation's income between 1979 and 2005, while their effective income tax rate dropped by 15 percent.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, income growth in America Between 1979 and 2006 was starkly uneven. Real after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by 256 percent, or $863,000, compared to 21 percent, or $9,200, for households in the middle fifth, and 11 percent, or $1,600, for households in the bottom fifth. In 2006, the average household in the top 1 percent had an annual income of $1.2 million, up $63,000 just from the prior year.
Yes, the wealthy people in America suffered losses during the recession, but percentage-wise those losses were nothing compared to what the middle and lower income people suffered. Now that the stock market is rebounding, the rich are recouping their losses. Middle and lower income people will never recoup their losses from foreclosed homes, lost jobs, lost health insurance, and bankruptcies.
If I were making the tax laws, I would not simply repeal the Bush tax cuts. I would greatly increase taxes on the rich. Why? Because there is too much poverty, too much hunger, too much sickness, too much disparity between rich and poor here in America, the land of wealth and opportunity. I doubt that most people are aware of the enormous gap between the wealth of the top 1 percent of people in America and the rest of us. Those very wealthy people have excellent health insurance and health care. Perhaps that is why we hear so much drivel about how America has the best health care in the world. We don’t, but very wealthy Americans probably do.
What George Will and the right-wingers fail to mention is that according to the Census Bureau and a study by the Sociology Department of the University of California, as of 2004, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 42.2 percent of all privately held financial wealth in America, and the next 19 percent owned 50.3 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned 85 percent of the wealth in America! Their wealth was 190 times greater than that of the median U.S. household. The top 10 percent had 85 to 90 percent of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75 percent of non-home real estate.
Conservatives have been trying to eliminate inheritance taxes, which they call “death taxes.” According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6 percent of Americans inherit more than $100,000. Another 1.1 percent inherit $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9 percent of the people in America inherit nothing.
Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in the 21-year-period between 1983 and 2004, 42 percent of it went to the top 1 percent. A whopping 94 percent went to the top 20 percent, which of course means that the bottom 80 percent received only 6 percent of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s.
A 2007 study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the top 1 percent of income earners in America nearly quadrupled their share of the nation's income between 1979 and 2005, while their effective income tax rate dropped by 15 percent.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, income growth in America Between 1979 and 2006 was starkly uneven. Real after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by 256 percent, or $863,000, compared to 21 percent, or $9,200, for households in the middle fifth, and 11 percent, or $1,600, for households in the bottom fifth. In 2006, the average household in the top 1 percent had an annual income of $1.2 million, up $63,000 just from the prior year.
Yes, the wealthy people in America suffered losses during the recession, but percentage-wise those losses were nothing compared to what the middle and lower income people suffered. Now that the stock market is rebounding, the rich are recouping their losses. Middle and lower income people will never recoup their losses from foreclosed homes, lost jobs, lost health insurance, and bankruptcies.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Deficit Neutral Health Care Reform
I suspect that many of the people who oppose President Obama’s health care reform plan do so because the CBO has projected that the plan will cost $1 trillion over ten years. They see reform as bankrupting this nation. What they fail to realize is that there will be no bankrupting deficits from health care reform because reform is designed to be deficit neutral. That means that savings in other areas will pay for the cost of health care reform.
President Obama has pointed-out that failure to pass health care reform will be far more costly to America than any reform bill. Speaking before the American Medical Association's annual meeting, President Obama said: "(Failing) to reform our healthcare system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages."
A study by the Urban Institute, a Washington D.C. think-tank that conducts policy research, has shown that if we fail to enact health care reform it will cause catastrophic financial devastation in America over the next decade and cost the government far more than anything caused by health care reform. There will be an increasing strain on business owners and their employees due to the rising cost of health care and health insurance. Businesses by the thousands will drop health insurance for their employees and tens of millions more people will become uninsured. There will be dramatic growth in Medicaid/CHIP enrollment and spending, and increased spending on uncompensated health care. There will be a tremendous increase in bankruptcies due to health care costs.
President Obama stressed that health care reform would be deficit-neutral over the next decade, explaining how the price tag would be covered. In his budget for fiscal year 2010 the President has already obtained $635 billion for the Health Reserve Fund to pay for health care reform over the next ten years. Most of that amount will come from revenue-raising efforts such as limiting tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans.
The President also explained other means by which the price tag for health care reform would be covered. Estimated savings over 10 years include: Removing subsidies and introducing competitive bidding into the Medical Advantage program, $177 billion; Using Medicare reimbursements to help reduce preventable re-admissions, $25 billion; Introducing generic drugs into the marketplace, $30 billion; more efficient purchasing of prescription drugs, $75 billion; "rooting out waste, abuse and fraud" throughout the healthcare system, $1 billion; adjusting Medicare payments to reflect advances and productivity gains in the economy, $109 billion.
The House health care reform bill provides that any public option will have to be self-sustaining through participants’ payment of premiums. This will be possible even if the premiums are substantially lower than those for private health insurance because a public option will not incur the gigantic administrative costs incurred by private insurance.
One huge benefit of cost savings built into the health care reform bill will be reduction and eventual elimination of the “doughnut hole” in the Medicare Part D drug benefit program. The “doughnut hole” was demanded by the health insurance industry when the Republicans in Congress knuckled-under and enacted Part D. Today, most seniors find that after six or more months their Part D benefits run-out and they have to pay the full cost of their medications. Those costs can be cruelly high, and for some, too high to pay. Now it will be possible for all medications to be covered by the program.
If you are worried about the cost of health care reform, you should be terrified at the prospect of no reform. I can assure you that without reform, you will eventually either lose your health insurance or wind-up paying far far more for less and less coverage.
President Obama has pointed-out that failure to pass health care reform will be far more costly to America than any reform bill. Speaking before the American Medical Association's annual meeting, President Obama said: "(Failing) to reform our healthcare system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages."
A study by the Urban Institute, a Washington D.C. think-tank that conducts policy research, has shown that if we fail to enact health care reform it will cause catastrophic financial devastation in America over the next decade and cost the government far more than anything caused by health care reform. There will be an increasing strain on business owners and their employees due to the rising cost of health care and health insurance. Businesses by the thousands will drop health insurance for their employees and tens of millions more people will become uninsured. There will be dramatic growth in Medicaid/CHIP enrollment and spending, and increased spending on uncompensated health care. There will be a tremendous increase in bankruptcies due to health care costs.
President Obama stressed that health care reform would be deficit-neutral over the next decade, explaining how the price tag would be covered. In his budget for fiscal year 2010 the President has already obtained $635 billion for the Health Reserve Fund to pay for health care reform over the next ten years. Most of that amount will come from revenue-raising efforts such as limiting tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans.
The President also explained other means by which the price tag for health care reform would be covered. Estimated savings over 10 years include: Removing subsidies and introducing competitive bidding into the Medical Advantage program, $177 billion; Using Medicare reimbursements to help reduce preventable re-admissions, $25 billion; Introducing generic drugs into the marketplace, $30 billion; more efficient purchasing of prescription drugs, $75 billion; "rooting out waste, abuse and fraud" throughout the healthcare system, $1 billion; adjusting Medicare payments to reflect advances and productivity gains in the economy, $109 billion.
The House health care reform bill provides that any public option will have to be self-sustaining through participants’ payment of premiums. This will be possible even if the premiums are substantially lower than those for private health insurance because a public option will not incur the gigantic administrative costs incurred by private insurance.
One huge benefit of cost savings built into the health care reform bill will be reduction and eventual elimination of the “doughnut hole” in the Medicare Part D drug benefit program. The “doughnut hole” was demanded by the health insurance industry when the Republicans in Congress knuckled-under and enacted Part D. Today, most seniors find that after six or more months their Part D benefits run-out and they have to pay the full cost of their medications. Those costs can be cruelly high, and for some, too high to pay. Now it will be possible for all medications to be covered by the program.
If you are worried about the cost of health care reform, you should be terrified at the prospect of no reform. I can assure you that without reform, you will eventually either lose your health insurance or wind-up paying far far more for less and less coverage.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
What They Deserve
All of those people who have been showing-up at town halls and tea parties in order to protest President Obama’s plan for health care reform deserve one thing—to win. I wish it was possible to enact health care reform with a public option and exclude from its benefits all of those screaming right-wingers who so vociferously oppose it.
I wish such people could be required to go on as before with higher and higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles for private health insurance; continued rationing and denial of coverage for prior health conditions; continued withdrawal of coverage in the middle of serious medical emergencies; continued annual and lifetime limits on benefits; continued high costs for medication; and continuation of the huge “doughnut holes” for elderly Medicare recipients. Yes—it would be nice to let them continue in the morass we presently have, while the rest of us got decent coverage under a new national health care plan.
Unfortunately, it will not work that way. If health care reform goes down to defeat all of us, not just the screamers, will lose.
If health care reform with a public option is passed, the screamers will say: “We fought the good fight, but now that it is possible to get health insurance at lower cost, with coverage for prior conditions, no annual or lifetime limits, and preventive medical coverage for things like pap smears, colonoscopies, mammograms, chest X-Rays, PSA tests, and blood tests, why not take advantage of it”? They will break their necks signing-up for the public option, and a few years down the road they will fight to keep their new governmental health coverage from being diminished.
But sadly, if health care reform is defeated, thousands of people will continue to die from lack of health insurance. It is estimated that at least 18,000 people die every year because of lack of health insurance. Millions of people who have lost their jobs during the Bush recession will not be able to get health insurance coverage. Millions of seniors will continue to empty their little savings accounts to pay for medications during the “doughnut holes.” Millions of people who have prior medical conditions will be unable to get coverage.
On Wednesday, September 9, President Obama gave a ringing call to America to move ahead with health care reform. He noted that the same kind of people who oppose this reform also opposed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He demolished some of the outrageous distortions being put-out not only by talk radio and Fox News hosts, but also by Republican politicians.
While the President spoke, the Republicans sat stonily. Our local guy, House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, looked like a well-tanned corpse. The crude and ill mannered outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina represented not only the people of that state and its leaders, Senator DeMint and Governor Sanford, but also the attitude of the Republicans in Congress who have allowed their party to be seized by ultra conservatives
Meanwhile the Republican senators and congressmen who plan to vote against health care reform will go on living under the umbrella of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP); the finest health insurance benefits available anywhere. During President Obama’s speech on health care reform, he called for compromise, but those Republicans are not the least bit interested in compromise.
For the ordinary citizens who opposed health care reform because of their concern with other issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, guns, immigration, gay rights, and the president’s race, it is a case of biting off your nose to spite your face. They will get what they deserve if health care reform goes down to defeat. For the senators and congressmen who vote against health care reform, their health insurance should be taken away.
I wish such people could be required to go on as before with higher and higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles for private health insurance; continued rationing and denial of coverage for prior health conditions; continued withdrawal of coverage in the middle of serious medical emergencies; continued annual and lifetime limits on benefits; continued high costs for medication; and continuation of the huge “doughnut holes” for elderly Medicare recipients. Yes—it would be nice to let them continue in the morass we presently have, while the rest of us got decent coverage under a new national health care plan.
Unfortunately, it will not work that way. If health care reform goes down to defeat all of us, not just the screamers, will lose.
If health care reform with a public option is passed, the screamers will say: “We fought the good fight, but now that it is possible to get health insurance at lower cost, with coverage for prior conditions, no annual or lifetime limits, and preventive medical coverage for things like pap smears, colonoscopies, mammograms, chest X-Rays, PSA tests, and blood tests, why not take advantage of it”? They will break their necks signing-up for the public option, and a few years down the road they will fight to keep their new governmental health coverage from being diminished.
But sadly, if health care reform is defeated, thousands of people will continue to die from lack of health insurance. It is estimated that at least 18,000 people die every year because of lack of health insurance. Millions of people who have lost their jobs during the Bush recession will not be able to get health insurance coverage. Millions of seniors will continue to empty their little savings accounts to pay for medications during the “doughnut holes.” Millions of people who have prior medical conditions will be unable to get coverage.
On Wednesday, September 9, President Obama gave a ringing call to America to move ahead with health care reform. He noted that the same kind of people who oppose this reform also opposed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He demolished some of the outrageous distortions being put-out not only by talk radio and Fox News hosts, but also by Republican politicians.
While the President spoke, the Republicans sat stonily. Our local guy, House Minority Gasbag John Boehner, looked like a well-tanned corpse. The crude and ill mannered outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina represented not only the people of that state and its leaders, Senator DeMint and Governor Sanford, but also the attitude of the Republicans in Congress who have allowed their party to be seized by ultra conservatives
Meanwhile the Republican senators and congressmen who plan to vote against health care reform will go on living under the umbrella of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP); the finest health insurance benefits available anywhere. During President Obama’s speech on health care reform, he called for compromise, but those Republicans are not the least bit interested in compromise.
For the ordinary citizens who opposed health care reform because of their concern with other issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, guns, immigration, gay rights, and the president’s race, it is a case of biting off your nose to spite your face. They will get what they deserve if health care reform goes down to defeat. For the senators and congressmen who vote against health care reform, their health insurance should be taken away.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
No Cuts in Medicare Benefits
Mitch McConnell and the other Republican allies of the health insurance industry have been arguing that President Obama’s health care reform bill will cut benefits from Medicare in order to pay for reform. This lie is seriously scaring senior citizens. It is regrettable that politics drives these politicians to engage in such distortions. Why can’t they oppose health care reforms without lying?
The truth is that under the President’s plan for health care reform there will be no reduction in Medicare benefits and people will continue to have the same coverage that they have always had. The President has been repeatedly questioned about this at forums he has held around the country. People want to know how he is going to cut the cost of Medicare without cutting benefits. "Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits," he said. "What we do want is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund." He cited $177 billion of government subsidies paid to insurance companies participating in Medicare Advantage, a Medicare benefits program run by private insurance companies.
Medicare Advantage is a hugely wasteful Medicare-type program of private insurance that is, for some reason, subsidized by the federal government. It was installed when the Republicans controlled congress. They did it in the belief that private enterprise could run Medicare better than the government. They turned-out to be dead wrong. It costs 17 percent more, on average, to cover a beneficiary under Medicare Advantage than under regular Medicare. Because the program is run by private insurance companies, nearly half of its excess payments go to administrative costs, marketing, and profits, rather than to additional health benefits to enrollees
If Medicare Advantage was eliminated, participants would lose nothing. They would simply go on regular Medicare which provides the same coverage for billions less in taxpayer funds. With an extra $177 billion, the government will be able to strengthen Medicare and its benefits, not cut it.
The House health care reform bill actually gives Medicare an additional $340 billion over the next decade to provide improved care so that seniors do not have to be readmitted to the hospital to correct mistakes. To save money, the bill lowers the amount of subsidies to hospitals for such readmissions and lowers the automatic annual increases to hospitals. None of this will result in cuts in benefits, and readmitted seniors will still receive full coverage, but it will provide better care to seniors while saving the Medicare Trust Fund billions of dollars.
Although the AARP has not specifically endorsed any of the health reform bills in Congress, one of AARP’s new print ads reads: “Special interest groups are trying to block progress on health care reform using myths and scare tactics. The opponents of reform will stop at nothing to derail the process and protect their own vested interests—even if it means misleading older Americans”
In a recent press release, the AARP said: “AARP’s advertising campaign will bust the myths some are spreading to frighten Americans, including false assertions that fixing the health care system will lead to rationed health care, a government takeover, or even euthanasia. We won’t stand idle when opponents of health care reform attempt to scare or mislead the American people—and older Americans in particular—about what fixing the system really means. The truth is we need to fix health care, whether it’s ensuring affordable coverage for Americans age 50 to 64 or improving benefits for people in Medicare. It’s time for the public to get the real facts.”
Shame on the insurance companies and congressional Republicans for trying to scare senior citizens! Shame on them for claiming that under health care reform there will be cuts in Medicare benefits.
The truth is that under the President’s plan for health care reform there will be no reduction in Medicare benefits and people will continue to have the same coverage that they have always had. The President has been repeatedly questioned about this at forums he has held around the country. People want to know how he is going to cut the cost of Medicare without cutting benefits. "Nobody is talking about trying to change Medicare benefits," he said. "What we do want is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare trust fund." He cited $177 billion of government subsidies paid to insurance companies participating in Medicare Advantage, a Medicare benefits program run by private insurance companies.
Medicare Advantage is a hugely wasteful Medicare-type program of private insurance that is, for some reason, subsidized by the federal government. It was installed when the Republicans controlled congress. They did it in the belief that private enterprise could run Medicare better than the government. They turned-out to be dead wrong. It costs 17 percent more, on average, to cover a beneficiary under Medicare Advantage than under regular Medicare. Because the program is run by private insurance companies, nearly half of its excess payments go to administrative costs, marketing, and profits, rather than to additional health benefits to enrollees
If Medicare Advantage was eliminated, participants would lose nothing. They would simply go on regular Medicare which provides the same coverage for billions less in taxpayer funds. With an extra $177 billion, the government will be able to strengthen Medicare and its benefits, not cut it.
The House health care reform bill actually gives Medicare an additional $340 billion over the next decade to provide improved care so that seniors do not have to be readmitted to the hospital to correct mistakes. To save money, the bill lowers the amount of subsidies to hospitals for such readmissions and lowers the automatic annual increases to hospitals. None of this will result in cuts in benefits, and readmitted seniors will still receive full coverage, but it will provide better care to seniors while saving the Medicare Trust Fund billions of dollars.
Although the AARP has not specifically endorsed any of the health reform bills in Congress, one of AARP’s new print ads reads: “Special interest groups are trying to block progress on health care reform using myths and scare tactics. The opponents of reform will stop at nothing to derail the process and protect their own vested interests—even if it means misleading older Americans”
In a recent press release, the AARP said: “AARP’s advertising campaign will bust the myths some are spreading to frighten Americans, including false assertions that fixing the health care system will lead to rationed health care, a government takeover, or even euthanasia. We won’t stand idle when opponents of health care reform attempt to scare or mislead the American people—and older Americans in particular—about what fixing the system really means. The truth is we need to fix health care, whether it’s ensuring affordable coverage for Americans age 50 to 64 or improving benefits for people in Medicare. It’s time for the public to get the real facts.”
Shame on the insurance companies and congressional Republicans for trying to scare senior citizens! Shame on them for claiming that under health care reform there will be cuts in Medicare benefits.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Armed Idiots
There is a new and growing tactic by right-wing thugs opposed to the policies of President Obama. They show-up at forums where the President is speaking and have guns strapped to their sides or slung over their shoulders. One idiot, with a 9 mm pistol strapped to his leg, held up a sign outside President Obama's health-care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H. The sign read, "It's time to water the tree of liberty." That's a reference to Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that the tree "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." That was also a favorite slogan of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.
Although one’s first instinct might be to have Congress pass a law forbidding such display of guns in the vicinity of the President, it has been pointed out that the Secret Service has the power to expand the perimeter around the President in order to insure his safety. Moreover, although these pitiful exhibitionists may be intent on intimidating the President and those who come out to see him, they are actually exposing their own vulnerabilities, insecurities, and ignorance. If they ever tried to use their little guns to attack the President or his supporters, the Secret Service would squash them like annoying insects.
It seems to be popular among right-wing loonies to cite the language of Jefferson about “time to water the tree of liberty.” It would be somewhat more serious if these people knew anything about the ideas of Jefferson or the history of our nation. They are, however, a group of dunderheads who wouldn’t know a history book if it fell out of a library and hit them on the head.
People who show-up at Presidential forums with guns strapped to their legs may wish to intimidate, but they face an insurmountable problem. They are poorly armed. They are armed only with their little pop-guns, and not with ideas. Ideas are far more powerful than guns.
The neo-fascist militia types, who are threatening armed revolution because they do not like the policies of our democratically-elected president, are not to be feared. They are to be pitied. If they ever actually started an armed revolt, which is highly unlikely, they would be confronting a President who commands the most powerful armed forces in the world. They would be snuffed-out in a moment, most likely by local and state police. For some reason, the obviousness of this does not seem to stop them from mouthing some of the dumbest rhetoric imaginable.
If these people had some ideas, any ideas, they would be far more dangerous. Ideas have power. Democracy is an idea. It has enabled modern man to avoid the violence and bloodshed of usurpations to overthrow tyrants. It recognizes the inalienable right of people to decide their own fate by means of elections. It insures the right of the majority to rule. It grants to mankind dignity, power, and freedom. Mankind can rid the world of tyrants by going to local polling places and casting ballots. In a democracy there is no need to take-up arms against a tyrant.
President Barack Obama is a duly elected chief executive. He stands for the liberal doctrines long pursued by the Democratic Party, including civil rights, workers rights, minimum wages, protecting the environment, and universal health care. He is an idealistic and visionary individual. He does not seek tyranny. He does not seek a communistic takeover of our lives by government. He seeks justice, charity, and decency. He reflects a brilliant mind, a warm and compassionate personality, leadership, and a remarkably fine character. I realize that I am too partisan to see any defects in him, but for the life of me I cannot understand the reasoning of those who hate him.
Although one’s first instinct might be to have Congress pass a law forbidding such display of guns in the vicinity of the President, it has been pointed out that the Secret Service has the power to expand the perimeter around the President in order to insure his safety. Moreover, although these pitiful exhibitionists may be intent on intimidating the President and those who come out to see him, they are actually exposing their own vulnerabilities, insecurities, and ignorance. If they ever tried to use their little guns to attack the President or his supporters, the Secret Service would squash them like annoying insects.
It seems to be popular among right-wing loonies to cite the language of Jefferson about “time to water the tree of liberty.” It would be somewhat more serious if these people knew anything about the ideas of Jefferson or the history of our nation. They are, however, a group of dunderheads who wouldn’t know a history book if it fell out of a library and hit them on the head.
People who show-up at Presidential forums with guns strapped to their legs may wish to intimidate, but they face an insurmountable problem. They are poorly armed. They are armed only with their little pop-guns, and not with ideas. Ideas are far more powerful than guns.
The neo-fascist militia types, who are threatening armed revolution because they do not like the policies of our democratically-elected president, are not to be feared. They are to be pitied. If they ever actually started an armed revolt, which is highly unlikely, they would be confronting a President who commands the most powerful armed forces in the world. They would be snuffed-out in a moment, most likely by local and state police. For some reason, the obviousness of this does not seem to stop them from mouthing some of the dumbest rhetoric imaginable.
If these people had some ideas, any ideas, they would be far more dangerous. Ideas have power. Democracy is an idea. It has enabled modern man to avoid the violence and bloodshed of usurpations to overthrow tyrants. It recognizes the inalienable right of people to decide their own fate by means of elections. It insures the right of the majority to rule. It grants to mankind dignity, power, and freedom. Mankind can rid the world of tyrants by going to local polling places and casting ballots. In a democracy there is no need to take-up arms against a tyrant.
President Barack Obama is a duly elected chief executive. He stands for the liberal doctrines long pursued by the Democratic Party, including civil rights, workers rights, minimum wages, protecting the environment, and universal health care. He is an idealistic and visionary individual. He does not seek tyranny. He does not seek a communistic takeover of our lives by government. He seeks justice, charity, and decency. He reflects a brilliant mind, a warm and compassionate personality, leadership, and a remarkably fine character. I realize that I am too partisan to see any defects in him, but for the life of me I cannot understand the reasoning of those who hate him.
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