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  • TUESDAY JUNE 30 2009 9:30 AM

Democrats Blowing It On Health Care

It’s really quite interesting to watch the Democrats throw it all away. This time, they seem to think blowing the chance at decent health care reform will aid them in future elections. Or perhaps they have taken so much money from the health care industry that they don’t give a shit. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Fixing health care is the biggest problem facing our country. If we don’t do something drastic, it will completely destroy our economy in the years to come. As it is, we’re in bad shape. Democrats, specifically Senate Democrats, have decided to help the poor insurance industry out as much as possible. Es no bueno.

Most of the debate is over the dreaded “public option.” Oh, dear no. We can’t have a public option. That’s socialized medicine! Americans must be able to choose! And by that I mean they can’t choose a public option! They have to be able to choose between private monopolies! This is fucking America! We demand to be fucked over by private companies as much as possible!

And make no mistake about it; those against the “public option” want to continue with monopolies.

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.



So, that's what the "free market" kids are fighting for. Monopolies. Yay!

A public option would guarantee the possibility of lower cost, reliable coverage. It will bring cost control by reforming how we pay for medical care. It will create competition between private insurers that simply does not exist today. It will also force private insurers to perform better, something they are not doing today.

To those who say the public option would drive the private companies out of business; I thought everything government did sucked? Is government bad or highly efficient? Please stick to one talking point, no matter the subject. Secondly, the private insurance companies have had their chance and to say they fucked it up would be an understatement. They deserve no protection. I have no interest in keeping pedophiles in business, either. Their time has come and gone. They could have kept costs lower, kept people from dying, insured anyone with preconditions, but they decided to go for the biggest profits possible and now they are on the deserving end of what’s coming. They only compete to insure the well and reject the sick. Then they employ adjusters to get the company out of paying for health care services when the well become sick. Welcome to the world of failure. They made their bed, now they have to lie in it.

If any of you loud mouthed, utopian, not living in the real world Libertarians bring up regulation, feel free to explain the exact regulation that makes health care so expensive. If you can’t detail these so called regulations, shut your face and stick your broad stroke arguments up your ass. Your simplicity has grown tiresome. This current debate is for adults and what you want will never be, so stay out of it or act like an adult and accept that what you want ain’t going to happen.

As far as the public plan, Democrats are right now working on a way to water it down until it is completely ineffective. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who is a son of a bitch because of his FISA legislation, has come up with a good public health care plan. His plan would partner a public plan with Medicare for more bargaining power and access to provider networks. According the non-partisan Lewin Group and the Commonwealth Foundation, Rockefeller’s plan would drop premiums 20 to 30 percent. Can’t have that, now can we?

Rockefeller’s plan would force private insurance companies to be more honest. They would have to cut their bullshit administrative costs and fire quite a few of those adjusters whose job is to find ways to not pay for care. Right now, you have no choice. You can choose between one horrible private insurance company or another. There really isn’t much difference. The idea is to force them to become insurers instead of profiteers.

Other Democrats are working on plans that would do almost nothing. Senator Chuck Schumer has a “level playing field” public plan that won’t save much at all. It will just create a plan that will allow private companies to dump old, sick and high-risk patients onto the public plan. This is considered a compromise. It will be awesome because by doing it halfway, they will create exactly what the right wing claims will happen. It will be a terribly ineffective, expensive plan. It would not use low rates that Medicare sets or use taxpayer subsidies. It wouldn’t force its way into networks. It would just be like any other insurer, except for the fact that it would be a dumping ground for private insurers to unload their expensive patients. It’s one of those genius “Democrats compromise and create a pile of shit plans.”

Finally, there’s Ben Nelson’s “Trigger Plan.” You know it’s good because Nelson has taken millions and millions of dollars from insurance companies. The Trigger Plan would be like a big, invisible, scary fist looming over the insurance industry. If the private market didn’t offer cost control or enough options, the public plan would come into existence - but it would be at the state level. It’s a regional Trigger. Some states might have a public plan and others would not. It’s basically set up as a way for private companies to game the system. Ben Nelson doesn’t seem to realize the trigger should have been pulled 8 years ago. If he wants to set the threshold where costs are now, it’s a big lose. Go Blue Dogs!

Those are the public plan options. Now which one do you think Democrats in the Senate will choose? I’d bet big money on the “Level playing field” plan because it doesn’t actually threaten the private insurance market. It actually helps them in their quest to be the biggest douche bags on Earth.

Prepare for failure.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper You may also enjoy his blog, Stop All Monsters.

 

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Comments
Stiles

Stiles

Oakland, CA
November 2002

JUL 01, 2009 09:39 AM

cowpunk123 said:

Well I wasn't actually talking about utopian health care, I was responding to the author calling libertarians utopians. Now the first sentence of yours brings up another problem. The rest of the Western world also has hate speech laws, and therefore do not have free speech, the most basic human right. And again, I don't necessarily have a problem with a public option, but am angry Obama's unwillingness to consider tort reform, or for that matter education reform, social security reform or reform of any other broken systems that line his pockets



Not to go off on a tangent here, but libertarians get labeled utopians because they seldom have realistic answers to the practical requirements of running and regulating the country. Lots of inexperienced naivete, few workable and realistic solutions.

As an example, you seem to hold the belief that free speech is absolute, a stance that does not hold up to analysis and one that the SCOTUS does not support. One cannot falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, to use the age old example.

Typical libertarian thought on property rights and infrastructure are similarly shortsighted. Perhaps you know better, but judging by your comment above I rather doubt it.

mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

JUL 01, 2009 10:10 AM

Stiles said:

SergeantPsycho said:

Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).



Spoken like someone with no experience whatsoever starting and running a small business.

You are quite possibly the most clueless person I've never met.



Indeed. Not only do you bust your ass trying to get the business started, and taking care of all the legalities involved with doing so, but you end up busting your ass at your primary employer to either a) hide the fact you're starting a new business and will be leaving eventually; b) need to make up time you've needed to take off to deal with getting everything together, since licensing agencies, suppliers, landlords, etc., don't usually work when you've got time after work to deal with them; c) you can't afford to lose your job while laying out hundreds and/or thousands of dollars to get the business plans together you'll need for loans.




FearTheReaper

FearTheReaper

NEWSWIRE

I'm lost

JUL 01, 2009 10:15 AM

It's nice to see most Americans are too selfish.


A new Quinnipiac poll finds that a large majority of Americans would like to see government increase its involvement in health care. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said they support a public option.

Interestingly--though perhaps predictably--most of this support seems to be in the abstract. A majority of those asked (53%) most suggested they'd rather be covered by private insurance than by a government-run option--reflective, perhaps, of the reality that most Americans are already insured and most of them are pleased with the quality of their health care. But they nonetheless want other citizens to have the option. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they want government-run health insurance.


link

FreakPirate

FreakPirate

Canada
November 2002

JUL 01, 2009 10:41 AM

SergeantPsycho said:

In that instance, I'd probably try and negotiate some kind of payment plan for services rendered. (Perhaps a "Medical Loan" industry is a business niche that might be filled).



Yes, because your existing bullshit loan industries have done miracles for the country. whatever

You really expect people who may be too sick to work to pay back thousands of dollars in loans and interest? You don't see how that's a terrible idea? Are you some kind of heartless lunatic?

ARRR!!!

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUL 01, 2009 10:51 AM

Obama is holding a live town hall on health care reform. Questions just started. You can watch it live here.

Edit: You can listen to it. The stream is wildly out of sync if you have any bandwidth hiccups.

Otoki

Otoki

SUICIDEGIRL

Minnesota, USA

JUL 01, 2009 11:03 AM

FreakPirate said:

SergeantPsycho said:

In that instance, I'd probably try and negotiate some kind of payment plan for services rendered. (Perhaps a "Medical Loan" industry is a business niche that might be filled).



Yes, because your existing bullshit loan industries have done miracles for the country. whatever

You really expect people who may be too sick to work to pay back thousands of dollars in loans and interest? You don't see how that's a terrible idea? Are you some kind of heartless lunatic?

ARRR!!!


People with medical debt are just being lazy. They have to stop expecting handouts and pay back their five and six digit medical bills!

mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

JUL 01, 2009 11:34 AM

Otoki said:

FreakPirate said:

SergeantPsycho said:

In that instance, I'd probably try and negotiate some kind of payment plan for services rendered. (Perhaps a "Medical Loan" industry is a business niche that might be filled).



Yes, because your existing bullshit loan industries have done miracles for the country. whatever

You really expect people who may be too sick to work to pay back thousands of dollars in loans and interest? You don't see how that's a terrible idea? Are you some kind of heartless lunatic?

ARRR!!!


People with medical debt are just being lazy. They have to stop expecting handouts and pay back their five and six digit medical bills!



Actually, it does exist. I've used it for pet care before. I believe I was paying either 22% or 28% APR. Ironically, they closed my account for having too much debt after buying a house. surreal

ZakSmith

ZakSmith

Los Angeles, CA
August 2003

JUL 01, 2009 11:46 AM


SergeantPsycho said:

Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).




I quit my day job long ago and run my own business. And guess fucking what?

My medical bills are insanely fucking high.

I get double and triple-billed even after I pay the bill at the hospital in cash every time, no matter what hospital I go to anywhere in the country (just got my fifth bill in a row from an already-paid bill at Kaiser.)

The amount of preventive care we get is subzero.

Whenever I'm not in the US and have a medical emergency I fucking thank my lucky stars 'cause the wait's shorter, the people are nicer and the care's better. And it's free.

When someone works for me, I don't cover any of my employees because they're part-time and giving them health-care would be taking on an expense far in excess of just fucking paying them double.


Fascinating side effect:

Since covering my occasional employees would be so expensive, the employee who wants medical care would be better off working for some big fat corporation RATHER than taking independent-go-your-own-way-type temporary work with me and my groovy little do-things-different small business

So small, start-up David-type businesses are going to have a tough time retaining good employees and competing with Goliath businesses unless and until we change our mother-fucking for-profit health care system


In other words, not only is it retarded in a million more important ways, the for-profit health care system is also bad for competition. If you care about that sort of thing.

kraze

kraze

I'm lost
November 2003

JUL 01, 2009 12:25 PM

Our economy is already completely destroyed.
Trust me. Can you see the _ gap?
They should do it like insuring the bike.
But?; This would work.
TBC; The revealing unraveling of Democracy...

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUL 01, 2009 12:29 PM

kraze said:
Our economy is already completely destroyed.
Trust me. Can you see the _ gap?
They should do it like insuring the bike.
But?; This would work.
TBC; The revealing unraveling of Democracy...



Are you trying to make a comment in the form of a poem, or was this supposed to be comprehensible somehow?

ZakSmith

ZakSmith

Los Angeles, CA
August 2003

JUL 01, 2009 12:40 PM

bean said:

kraze said:
Our economy is already completely destroyed.
Trust me. Can you see the _ gap?
They should do it like insuring the bike.
But?; This would work.
TBC; The revealing unraveling of Democracy...



Are you trying to make a comment in the form of a poem, or was this supposed to be comprehensible somehow?



My guess is poem.

But, really, I'll go with oblique lyrical ode over unsupported pseudoargument any day.

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

JUL 01, 2009 12:50 PM

ZakSmith said:

SergeantPsycho said:

Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).




I quit my day job long ago and run my own business. And guess fucking what?

My medical bills are insanely fucking high.

I get double and triple-billed even after I pay the bill at the hospital in cash every time, no matter what hospital I go to anywhere in the country (just got my fifth bill in a row from an already-paid bill at Kaiser.)

The amount of preventive care we get is subzero.

Whenever I'm not in the US and have a medical emergency I fucking thank my lucky stars 'cause the wait's shorter, the people are nicer and the care's better. And it's free.

When someone works for me, I don't cover any of my employees because they're part-time and giving them health-care would be taking on an expense far in excess of just fucking paying them double.


Fascinating side effect:

Since covering my occasional employees would be so expensive, the employee who wants medical care would be better off working for some big fat corporation RATHER than taking independent-go-your-own-way-type temporary work with me and my groovy little do-things-different small business

So small, start-up David-type businesses are going to have a tough time retaining good employees and competing with Goliath businesses unless and until we change our mother-fucking for-profit health care system


In other words, not only is it retarded in a million more important ways, the for-profit health care system is also bad for competition. If you care about that sort of thing.

You need to start a second business, this way that business can pay the health care for the first business, and when you need healthcare for the second business you should start a third . . . and so on. It just sounds like you're not trying hard enough.

/sarge

ZakSmith

ZakSmith

Los Angeles, CA
August 2003

JUL 01, 2009 12:53 PM

PointBlank said:

ZakSmith said:

SergeantPsycho said:

Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).




I quit my day job long ago and run my own business. And guess fucking what?

My medical bills are insanely fucking high.

I get double and triple-billed even after I pay the bill at the hospital in cash every time, no matter what hospital I go to anywhere in the country (just got my fifth bill in a row from an already-paid bill at Kaiser.)

The amount of preventive care we get is subzero.

Whenever I'm not in the US and have a medical emergency I fucking thank my lucky stars 'cause the wait's shorter, the people are nicer and the care's better. And it's free.

When someone works for me, I don't cover any of my employees because they're part-time and giving them health-care would be taking on an expense far in excess of just fucking paying them double.


Fascinating side effect:

Since covering my occasional employees would be so expensive, the employee who wants medical care would be better off working for some big fat corporation RATHER than taking independent-go-your-own-way-type temporary work with me and my groovy little do-things-different small business

So small, start-up David-type businesses are going to have a tough time retaining good employees and competing with Goliath businesses unless and until we change our mother-fucking for-profit health care system


In other words, not only is it retarded in a million more important ways, the for-profit health care system is also bad for competition. If you care about that sort of thing.

You need to start a second business, this way that business can pay the health care for the first business, and when you need healthcare for the second business you should start a third . . . and so on. It just sounds like you're not trying hard enough.

/sarge



Of course!. God, thank you!

Adroitbeing

Adroitbeing

I'm lost
September 2003

JUL 01, 2009 01:40 PM

cowpunk123 said:
but am angry Obama's unwillingness to consider tort reform, or for that matter education reform, social security reform or reform of any other broken systems that line his pockets



This is why libertarians earn the monikers naive, shortsighted, and intellectually dishonest.

Perhaps you can share with the class just exactly how does the current education system, social security or "any other broken systems" line the pockets of the president?

ZakSmith

ZakSmith

Los Angeles, CA
August 2003

JUL 01, 2009 02:05 PM

Adroitbeing said:

cowpunk123 said:
but am angry Obama's unwillingness to consider tort reform, or for that matter education reform, social security reform or reform of any other broken systems that line his pockets



This is why libertarians earn the monikers naive, shortsighted, and intellectually dishonest.

Perhaps you can share with the class just exactly how does the current education system, social security or "any other broken systems" line the pockets of the president?



I can save you both the trouble:
Look, the Standard Libertarian Answer here would be that trail lawyers, teachers unions and old people (supposedly "bought-off" with social security) donate money to or otherwise help out democrats in elections.

While that may be true, it still doesn't address the fact that the vast majority of studies on the subject suggest Tort reform isn't going to significantly reduce medical costs for anybody, and is used as a distracting technique in order to provide the Right with a way to blame something other than runaway capitalism for the high cost of health care, right up there with blaming crime rates on the lack of prayer in public school.

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