Blogs and Stories
The Right's Shameless Gambit
Newscom
Once the party of fiscal sanity, the Republicans are now wailing that the Democrats' health-care plan cheats seniors out of money. Matt Miller on how they scare grandma.
Connoisseurs of hypocrisy will always find plenty to savor in political debate. But even by the debased standards of modern Washington, the Republican charge this week that Democrats will “hurt seniors” by trimming future Medicare costs is demonstrably false—and exposes as a sham any GOP claim to care about fiscal sanity.
"It’s disingenuous to say Congress can cut this much spending from Medicare without having an adverse affect on seniors' access to care," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), as the Senate Finance Committee took up Chairman Max Baucus’ pivotal bill on Wednesday.
The notion that the Democrats’ tiny brake on runaway costs will “hurt” anyone—except members of the Medical Industrial Complex accustomed to being paid for ineffective care—is absurd.
But it’s Mr. Kyl who is being disingenuous. Consider some facts: Medicare will spend about $500 billion this year. Under the proposals that Republicans say will bring “rationing,” Medicare will spend about $860 billion in 2019, or 73 percent more than today. Instead of spending $7.1 trillion on Medicare over the next decade, as is currently forecast, Democrats propose spending roughly $6.7 trillion, or about 94 percent of that sum. This means Democrats propose to slow the annual growth rate of Medicare spending from a projected 6.6 percent to about 5.9 percent.
As context for this piddling restraint, recall that the U.S. spends 17 percent of GDP on health care today versus 10 to 11 percent among other advanced nations. American does this without achieving better health outcomes than do others, and while leaving nearly 50 million people uninsured. Meanwhile, there are huge regional variations in the utilization of procedures and services that researchers agree bear no relation to quality or results. Some credible analysts say that as much as 30 percent of U.S. health spending is ineffective.
At a moment when health economists in both political parties have concluded from such facts that American health spending is radically inefficient, the notion that the Democrats’ tiny brake on runaway costs will “hurt” anyone—except members of the Medical Industrial Complex accustomed to being paid for ineffective care—is absurd.
Privately, of course, Republican leaders know this—they’re just reaching for what they hope will be a potent political club to deny President Obama a big health-care win. And, to be sure, Democrats are past masters at “Mediscare” campaigns themselves, having unleashed one against Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s to devastating effect. As a matter of policy, Democratic attacks back then were misguided (as I argued at the time); in any event, two demagogic “wrongs” don’t make a “right.” What makes the GOP’s phony charges particularly damning today is the way they reveal the party’s avowed concern for “fiscal responsibility” to be hollow.
As anyone who’s looked at the question soon realizes, it’s impossible to be serious about budget deficits and America’s fiscal future without tackling the outsize growth of health costs. Measured against the scale of the problem, the current Democratic plans are, if anything, overly timid. That the GOP has chosen to puff them up into this month’s version of their “death panel” boogeyman shows Republicans simply aren’t serious about fiscal policy anymore. Or, to put it more precisely, the party’s desire to foil the president politically trumps whatever interest it once may have had in sound public finance.
This depressing instinct has become a pattern. Republicans pitilessly caricature Democratic calls for “comparative effectiveness” research as the road to rationing—as if it weren’t obviously a good idea to better understand the relative value of various treatments in the most costly and inefficient health-care system on earth. Republicans didn’t even think about offsetting the costs of the massive 2001 Bush tax cut for the well-to-do, or the $1 trillion America has spent in Iraq, or the hundreds of billions of dollars President Bush spent (sensibly) adding prescription-drug coverage to Medicare. The old-fashioned conservative habit of actually paying for major policy initiatives never seems to occur to Republicans anymore. Far better, contemporary GOP logic holds, to borrow the cash from China and ask the kids to pay it back.
Whatever political sleights-of-hand President Obama deploys himself, one thing is clear: By putting his party’s head on the chopping block with candid calls to trim Medicare and raise taxes to pay for ambitious health reform, Obama and the Democrats have shown a commitment to fiscal prudence that Republicans can’t even be bothered to feign anymore.
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
The Runaway Senate
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
The GOP’s Next Obamacare Attack
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
The Democrats' Midterm Nightmare
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
It's always possible for the Dems to scare Grandma more by saying that the Republicans really want to abolish Social Security and Medicare, and gamble all the money away in the stock market. They can also reminding her that they were the ones who started these programs while the Republicans always opposed them as wasteful, big government spending.
Anyway, it doesn't seem at all likely that health care spending is going to go down in the next 20-30 years, with 80 million Baby Boomers about to retire and more of the uninsured brought under government programs. It would take a magician to figure out how to save money under those circumstances.
mcmchugh99: It is easy to save money. All we need to do is eliminate insurance companies by implementing a single-payer government-run health care system like that of every other industrialized country.
Of course, this will be virtually impossible to do, since Congress is owned by insurance company lobbyists.
I have always supported a single payer system, but I know the insurance industry would pull out all the stops to block it.
I think the key is a broad ad campaign showing what the D's and labor unions brought to this country:
40-hour Work Week
No Child Labor
Social Security
Medicare
Civil Rights
Each and every one was called "Socialism" in its time.
The health insurance industry's opposition to the public option are like the cries of the mastodons in the face of extinction.
Blah blah blah. Medicare and Social Security are going to bankrupt the country if they're not fixed. Get off your damn butts and fix them AND THEN try asking for another dependency program.
This reform doesn't begin to address that, it's just squeezing some benefits from a quarter of the old people (per you own CBO!!!) so you can say your reform is deficit neutral.
TA - Perhaps you didn't get the memo - the country is bankrupt. As part of the Ch. 11 re-org, we need to focus in increasing revenue and cutting costs.
I'm perfectly happy to eliminate the social security cap (currently $106,800) and put the funds in Gore's "lockbox" to adequately and permanently fund the program without budgeting hi-jinx, but then you'd complain about raising taxes.
Yes the Government is great. Post office, VA, Native American health, Schools, Social Security etc. etc. all Government run.
thinkagain - blah blah yourself. The military industrial complex and wildly overpriced healthcare run for record profits are the problem. Trying to streamline the system makes sense.
ThinkAgain -
You've done an excellent job parroting the talking points. The problem is that you are backing the 1% - 5% of the people who have lived off the labor of other - talking about entitlement. The very people who own and run the companies which have consistently throughout our history have outsourced our jobs, even gong so far as to import slave labor (Africans in the South, Chinese on the railroads are just two examples.) Social Security is a program which recognizes the fact that big business has no problem putting workers on the street, and if there isn't a safety net in place the workers will find themselves living on the streets instead of enjoying their retirement.
The real question is, "What are our real priorities?" Is it people or profits? Why is corporate welfare ok for the oil industry, agribusiness (not farmers), finance and banking, underwriting foreign expansion of US business interests - including the cost of military protection - but assistance for individuals and families is un-American?
What do the people who have lost manufacturing jobs and have been forced to accept jobs barely above the poverty level do for retirement? Hope for the best? There are millions living on minimum wage. (For the record minimum wage was NOT designed for teenagers' first job. Minimum wage is the minimum subsistence rate for an individual - just able to feed, clothe and house themselves.) There is no way those folks can ever retire without Social Security.
I can't figure out why you are so opposed to ensuring that 100% of Americans have the healthcare they need. I have single-payer, government managed healthcare. There is no back-and-forth with paying the doctor's bill, no rejects for treatments, in short less hassle and less cost. The only people who would be "hurt" if a public single payer option is adopted are the yacht dealers and the high end realtors, because the execs in the insurance companies won't have the big bonuses to spend any more.
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: The new proposed Obama/Congresional Health Reformation Plan is to be primarily powered/funded by cleaning up the waste, fraud, and abuse in our current program. Perhaps the main objection to the new plan is an uncertainty/disbelief that the potential savings from waste, fraud, and abuse is as large as conjectured. But we don't need a new bill to clean up the waste, fraud, and abuse. Indeed, is the government not negligent in not cleaning up the waste, fraud, and abuse? Cleaning up the waste, fraud, and abuse would go a long way towards controlling the current out-of-control escalating medical costs? Let's do the cleanup now!
I propose mandatory death panels for Baby Boomers.
Then who would support you lazy Gex-Xers?
Why can't you support the lazy Gen-xers, flyover? You should certainly have enough funds, since you're a fat, loser Limbaugh/Beck listener ... oops, I meant former CEO of a major surgery company. Whatever that is.
There was; it was called Vietnam. You probably never heard of it because it wasn't a video game.
I certainly could, but I wouldn't want to deny you the gratification of experiencing an actual paycheck instead of the public dole you so cherish.
Once an addict like Limbag alway's a druggie. But the righties drink his Kool Aid right along with him.
Windbag just rotates his drugs i think, and with the heavy drugs Windbag the addict was using, most doctors i have read, who write about addiction, say 1 in a hundred ever truly stop.
But the lunatics on the right would follow that clown down a bottomless pit (wait, they already are) even knowing he is a druggie.
You Libs would be well advised to pay attention to what just happened in the German elections. "Merkel Wins Majority for Tax-Cut Coalition "
"Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she'll press ahead with tax cuts and labor-market deregulation after winning re-election with enough support to govern with the pro-business Free Democrats.
With Germany struggling to recover from the deepest economic slump since World War II, voters spurned plans by Merkel's Social Democratic challenger to raise taxes on top earners. Frank-Walter Steinmeier's SPD (Social Democrat Party) had its worst postwar result in what he called a "bitter day" after sharing power with Merkel for four years and governing for the previous seven.
During the campaign, she pledged to pursue deregulation, extend the life of nuclear-power plants and introduce across- the-board tax cuts of 15 billion euros ($22 billion).
Reform 'Mandate'
The result of yesterday's election will "modestly enhance the long-run growth potential of the country," Holger Schmieding, chief European economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in London, said in a phone interview. "The government has a mandate, not for dramatic change, not for a Thatcherite revolution, but it is a mandate for some supply-side reforms." "
Now let me explain this to you. Germany was further down the Socialist Path to Hell than we are, and they know that their survival requires moving back in the other dircection towards lower taxes, less Government regulation.
It would appear that the Producers in Germany have spoken. They always do, sooner or later.
Why don't you go over there to give her a hand?
Auf wiedersehen! Or, as the American's say:
"Don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you!"
I don't think so. This is OUR Country, and we're not likely to turn it over to the likes of you and your ilk anytime soon.
Duh, it already was turned over to my "ilk".
It's called an election.
They have consequences.
Ok, I agree up to a point (I just like to say "ilk"). But I was using the German example as an intellecual exercise, not because I want to go there. And anyway, history has shown that the Dems are not very good at holding on to the reins of Government, so in the words of Ahhnold: "We'll be bok." Assuming Obama is in for 8 years, the odds of a Dem winning again after that are very low historically.
reardongalt - Actually I'm surprised that you didn't mention that Europe has been and continues to go to the right in general, though of course that puts them in what we would call the center.
Good point Whip. I know this doesn't move them all the way right, and I wouldn't necessarily want that, anyway. But it does prove you can only go so far left before the economy collapses.
Interesting point except for two things: The consensus in Europe is that this is an American recession. Itä³ no coincidence that economies around the world all tanked at the same time.
All our scandals affected Europeä³ economy. Just like the great depression.
Typical to blame the victim.
Want a concrete example? Santander bank in Spain, was rated the best bank in the world by a European outfit just before Madoff ripped them off to the tune of billions.
The dollar and the euroä³ fates are intertwined.
Whip has a good point too, except not precise. Europe, especially northern Europe like Germany, could move a lot more to the right and still be way left of us. We donä´ even register on their spectrum. They are not to the center of us, by far. According to your own comment, these are minor adjustments, not sweeping, Thatcherite, quantum changes. They will NEVER relinquish their health care. I checked and rechecked, this article is about health care. So when you say we should be more like Germany I agree.
In essence, to say Germanyä³ economic problem is that theyä²¥ too far left ignores a mountain of facts. I am not a fan of socialism but health care is essential to democracy. How can you have life, liberty and the pusuit of happiness if youä²¥ dead?
"This is OUR country." I gotta tell you, it really pisses me off that I spent 20 years in uniform defending this country (two shooting wars) only to be told that because I am not in the GOP it isn't my country too. Read history and you will find that from the first days we have had the same kinds of disagreements - check out Shay's Rebellion, the 1877 labor riots, 1930's Bonus Marches. This our country too slick... deal with it!
2retiredarmtisg These gutless Repubs wet their pants if a real war broke out, and they had to defend Old Glory. Keyboard cowboys's are all mouth.
R. Lee Emery would tell them to shut their pie hole maggot!
How can you fix 4 to 6 trillion Shrub and Cheney left Obama in debt?
Billions to Bremer to toss around, billions to Allawi, untill he lost, then billions to Al-Malaki. Billions to Karzai, billions to Musharaff, billions and billions to Halliburton for nothing, billions to Blackwater, the killers for hire, and on and on.
And these dim witted fools, that are pure racist, blame Obama for the debt.
As the Church Lady said, "How convienent".
This crooked republican senator Jon Kyl is just one of many
republican senators who are being told by the Health Care Industry what to say and when to say it.These crooked re-
publican senators are whores that are working for the stinky
USA Health Care Industry.For many years the medical doctors,dentists,hospitals,health insurers and pharmaceuticals had been abusing the sick,overcharging
for their services in other words they had been defrauding
the USA's tax payers.Because greed ---> medical ethics is
gone from the whole health care industry.This is why these
crooked ( hypocritical ) republican senators are spreading
lies all over the USA.E,g; first they said that Barack Obama was born in the moon;Now they are saying that Barack Obama
really looks like Adolph Hitler.They lie because all these crooks ( the republican senators ) know that the Public Health
Care Bill is going to pass and that the gravy train is going to
end.
Ignore the crooked republican senators and pass the Public Health Care Bill as soon as possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------
Don't simply ignore the crooked (republican) senators, defeat them in the next election. Help clean out D.C., regardless of party. Creeps like Kyl, captured on Youtube with his elitist amendment to throw out basic maternity care from the reform bill, needs to go. He and Baucus are manipulated by lobbyists. We don't need shills to represent us.
don't be so quick to damn the whole industry Octavio....medical doctors, dentists and hospitals are the same people that have been shouting how healthcare spending is out of control. I'll give you the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, but don't label those that entered the industry to help their fellow man as defraud artists when these are the people who tend to swallow the costs they cannot get covered by insurance companies
I agree. Most of the hands-on people don't deserve to be lumped in with the leveragers and paper pushers.
I agree as well... Ralph Nader was right as far back as the 60's when he told us that insurance companies were the biggest crooks in the world.
I just turned 68 years old and I thank God every day that I did not become a blooming idiot when I turned 65.
How is it possible for anyone with two brain cells standing even close to each could believe some of the garbage being put out by the republicans and the righ-wing?
I really don't get it. Did these people suddenly lose the ability to think when they turned 65?
That's a really good question.
People who are stupid at 65 were most likely stupid at 25.
But they've had 40 years of practice being stupid, which makes them "ornery".
Just imagine Glenn Beck at 65 . . .
I've wondered that too, and my best guess is that it's not so much about age as retirement. People who aren't working are no longer in touch with the working economy and have more time to watch tv and listen to the radio. For many, their information becomes more what is told to them than what they experience firsthand. They become ungrounded. Take that and sprinkle on the general uncertainty of aging, and you have a lot of people who are vulnerable to lies.
So the Republicans took a page out of the Democratic play book., the one they used every time the Republicans tried to reform Social Security. Scaring Grandma is the highest art form in the Democratic party.
Let me guess. Another Baby Boomer with a sense of entitlement.
But, Embers, can't you read, neverlate is one of you.
And you must be part of the generation of no imagination,as baby boomer blamers have none, and will never set the world on fire.
Get ready to pay, big boy.
One of me? What do you mean, cbeenthere?
I think you mean AARP, the senior watchdog group that was very vocal in its opposition. Jack Kemp and Dick Armey tried to confuse the older population to push back by starting a group they called ARP, but the public got onto the trick.
"So the Republicans took a page out of the Democratic play book, the one they used every time the Republicans tried to reform Social Security."
Right, because just look at how AWESOME it would have been if Social Security had been privatized when the financial markets crashed last year. Why, those crazy Dems were scaring Grandma for nothing at all!
Nice accusation, but this thread is about the factual basis for criticizing the COP at this moment, running ads, holding meetings and sending out inflammatory literature -- some straight from the RNC -- to scare seniors.
It's critically important that younger folks tell parents and grandparents that Medicare will not be hurt but healthcare reform.
Just like young adults talked to parents and grandparents about Barack Obama and that he wasn't an Arab, etc., so too much those who know better dispell the lies and falsehoods surrounding health care reform.
Today in the Tennessean is a LONG article on what real people face every day with medical challenges and the cost. There's something called a body attachement where medical debtors can actually be taken to jail. Until reading that article I didn't think there was debtors prision in this country.
Got involved everyone. Call you local, state and Federal elected representatives and DEMAND affordable, accessible healthcare for all. Do it today.
Wow. You got my attention, but I couldn't believe it so I looked it up. It's true.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090928/NEWS01/909270377/Medical debts compound Nashvillians pain
Yikes. I checked out your link. Sadly, it sounds pretty typically of what is going on everywhere. Right now, seniors are the only people in our country who have any kind of a secure health care system. Our government and their age qualifies them for coverage. It makes me furious that the GOP is playing politics with the lives and financial health of the country. Are they blind? Oh, wait, that's right. They have GREAT coverage.
In addition to the more lurid fear of debtors' jail, there is the fact that 60% of all personal bankruptcies are medically related. People can simply not afford the high cost of catastrophic injury or illness and wind up broke. Pretty impressive for the nation that postures as the most democratic in the world!
Read this for a factual account of how medical crises precipitate bankruptcies, EVEN when people are covered by plans: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1
"Illness begot financial problems both directly (because of medical costs) and through lost income. Three-fifths (59.9 percent) of families bankrupted by medical problems indicated that medical bills (from medical care providers) contributed to bankruptcy; 47.6 percent cited drug costs; 35.3 percent had curtailed employment because of illness, often (52.8 percent) to care for someone else. Many families had problems with both medical bills and income loss."
It could happen to any of us, especially now that the economy is weak and many face job losses. Health care is intimately intertwined with the economy. Don't let anyone tell you that reform is a distraction from other issues. It's at the heart of our econimic woes.
The Dems saved grandma from going broke.
Wasn't Bushco's great idea of Social Sec reform to have seniors invest part of their Social Security in the stock market or in bonds. We can see how well that would have turned out.
"Wasn't Bushco's great idea of Social Sec reform to have seniors invest part of their Social Security in the stock market or in bonds."
Actually no. Seniors would not have been able to invest in Private accounts -- only those below a certain age threshold. And even then the ability to invest in private accounts was completely voluntary. And even then it was still only a small percentage of contributions that could have gone into a private account. I'd take my chances over time in the market rather than being held captive to the fiscal health of our Federal government anyday.
Sorry libs, but SS is indefensible. It is already well on it's way to becoming little more than a welfare program as the average real rate of return is right now around 0%. In the years to come that 0% return will seem like a windfall. You own nothing with SS but a bunch of worthless IOU's and are totally at the whim of free spending politicians for whatever "returns" you ever receive. Die early and too bad -- you have nothing to leave your family because you own nothing.
One of the tactics that the Democrats used to defeat Bush's privatization plan for SS was to falsely buttress the current state of Social Security. I believe it was Harry Reid who stated that the SS surplus would continue for decades. We now find out that SS will be in defecit this year. The other tactics that they used (fearmongering) were every bit as devious as those used by the evil Republicans and remember this was for a plan far less ambitious and radical than the current healthcare overhaul.
The reason that SS is in trouble financially is that Republicans raided that fund time after time. If they'd keep their fingers out of it when funding wars and tax cuts to the rich, SS would be healthy, thank you.
SS is indefensible? Heaven forbid that you ever become old, sick, or disabled.
So Democrats don't spend money on anything?
The liberal icon LBJ is the one responsible for taking social security from an independent trust fund and moving it into the general fund so that Congress could tap into these resources. And ever since both Democrats and Republicans have been raiding it at will.
Even without these raids into Social Security it is a very poorly designed program where no one would willingly put their money. It's a Ponzi scheme in which beneficiaries are paid by the "contributions" of those that come into the system later. Like all Ponzi schemes there is eventually not enough new contributors to make the system solvent. But yes, clearly the raids into the system from both Democrats and Republicans certainly haven't helped things.
You miss the point. SS is not an investment. It is "Social Security" That crazy notion that we all benefit when our older citizens aren't left destitute.
And they would all be far less destitute if they didn't have 13% of their income taken from them during their working lives to be returned at no gain.
If it is a welfare program then call it a welfare program and design it so that only the needy receive the benefits. Allow the rest of us to invest our money in conservative instruments so that we can do better than the current system.
Grimmace said: "You own nothing with SS but a bunch of worthless IOU's..."
I sure hope the Chinese don't read this, since all the trillions of dollars of U.S. securities they own (T-bills, etc.) are now nothing but "worthless IOUs".
face it, a complete overhaul of the health system is not what most of the voters will accept. said another way, grandma is pissed off and she's not gonna take it anymore.
At 61, I qualify to speak for quite a lot of grandmas, in fact every single one I know but one. We want the overhaul and we want the public option. You got the pissed off part right, though.
My husband at 62, speaks for the grandpas and he agrees with me. In fact, a lifelong Republican, he was disgusted and left the party about two years ago.
I bet your husband is back,,,atleast in the closet.
I'm 63, and I am with you connie, and at our ages we really have no personal stake in it, other than we want to see the future set right. But that is always what our generation has been about.
jus1drun: At 65 with Social Security, Medicare, and VA health care, I am pretty well off. But I'm still fighting for single-payer government-run health care (or at least a public option), since all Americans deserve as much as I have.
The Republicans and their right-wing followers will lie and fear-monger, because it is all they have to the rising cost and rising profitability of the healthcare industry.
Republicans always support profiteering businesses, no matter how detrimental they are to the public at large. Consider the polluting energy and chemical industries or the deregulated financial services industries - the public is always offered up to them as a sacrificial lambs, so the Republican Party can continue to get Big Money donations and keep control of Congress and the WH.
But now they don't have control and is scares the Republicans, who are acting crazier and crazier on every issue on behalf of their Big Money patron corporations.
I'm not sure why I even bother to engage with someone so far to the left that they include Marxist verbiage such as "profiteering businesses" , "polluting energy and chemical industries" and "deregulated financial services industries" in their demonization, but I can't let the one sided recitation of Big Money interests to stand.
These "evil" corporations and industries that you fearmonger while decrying the fearmongering of the Messiah's healthcare proposals spread the money around fairly equally to all sides -- not just Republicans. You see they like to have friends and interests on both sides of the aisle and they've figured out that the Democrats like to stay in power just as much if not more than the Republicans.
If you're going to criticize the language of others, clean up your own. Calling OUR president the Messiah shows disdain and lack of respect for the office. Quite despicable.
Your a terrible logician and an even worse historian. "Profiteering businesses," are those that gouge the public, especially those that have been given a virtual monopoly to prey on the public.
Since 2002, the heatlhcare insurers have raised their rates by 87% and quadrupled their profits, even as the incomes of their "prey" struggled to keep up with the rate of inflation.
I know people like you are "fact averse," and seek to accuse others of being "Marxist" or whatever other slanders you can conjure, but the simple fact is thanks to fools and liars like you, the obscenely rich keep get richer, and the middle-class is going bankrupt.
One infers from your comment that you think the EPA, FDA etc are "marxist." Well, Daddy, call me a marxist because I like pure food and drugs and clean water and air. Left on their own, corporations have shown they don't care about such matters. (Hint: think Dow Chemical poring dioxins in various rivers.)
pacific
Young people probably don't remember that the FDA saved this country from the terrible mistake in regard to drugs and the Thalidomide babies that were born in Britain, I think in the 70's as I recall.
pacific,
If clean air and water are the hallmarks of marxism, I just moved all the way left. Corporations care about one thing and one thing only - the bottom line. If there's enough money in cleaning up the planet, there will be big corporations jumping onboard all over the place. Whatever it takes.
Grimmace said: "I'm not sure why I even bother to engage with someone so far to the left that they include Marxist verbiage such as "profiteering businesses"..."
Well, let me engage you with a few inconvenient health care facts:
Pfizer recently agreed to a record $2.3 billion settlement for health-care fraud.
An average of 22% of health care claims in California are rejected by insurance companies. PacifiCare, the worst, rejects 40% of its claims.
After UnitedHealth Group paid fines of $1.4 billion for various frauds, they fired CEO William McGuire. McGuire took with him a golden parachute of $1.1 billion, the largest in the history of corporate America.
Rick Scott, leader of Conservatives for Patients Rights, was CEO of a hospital which defrauded Medicare for $1.7 billion.
Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, has made over $750 million in salary, bonuses, and other income in the last 4 years.
"An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period."
"The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company 'reprehensible.'"
"Humana was recently featured in a HuffPost story for denying health care due to lack of an enema. In 2005, it settled a racketeering suit for $40 million. It settled a fraud lawsuit in 2000 for $14.5 million. Since 2000, its profits have soared from $90 million to $834 million."
These are just a few examples of "profiteering businesses", although I think a better term would be "criminal businesses". Back to you, Grim...
I love people who do their homework. Nice one, Alan.
We had a complete overhaul of the healthcare system in Massachusetts and enforced a mandatory health insurance plan for every citizen of the state.
To date we have 97% of state residents coverred, and it is very popular with over 70% endorsing the plan.
Not that there aren't issues. It seems even with added business, the private insurers keep raising rates by double digits, and they are projecting a 10% increase for next year.
If the state took over the healthcare on it's own, we could reduce the costs, and have the best healthcare in the nation.
But the Massachusetts 3 year "experiment" with healthcare for all clearly can work, and could be less costly if we could get the private insurers to be less greedy.
That's why we need health care insurance industry regulation as part of the package. Romney didn't do that part of the equation. It's hugely ironic that he brought universal health care into MA and is now 'ducking' the rest of his party because they are so rabidly against it when he should be their hero of how to do it!
The GOP is spinning out of control; it is NOT doing the will of "We, the People". The party is in the thrall of lobbyists, not responsive to solving major issues like the spiraling costs imposed by health care insurance companies...and the Right-wing hacks of Faux News who spread fear for a living.
I agree. Romney could "lead" the Republican Party on making healthcare universal, but he's too two-faced (as usual), and the Republicans are too busy fighting for the private health industry, telling their lies and taking their donations.
Periscope you've stumbled onto a solution that we should all agree upon. Let Massachusetts do as Massachusetts wants -- hell let 'em even go the full takeover of healthcare. If it works so brilliantly then surely other states would want to copy the model. If you feel so strongly about Universal Healthcare then you can move to a state that has some version of that in place -- everybody wins.
That could be a solution, although I'm sure the healthcare insurers in every state would fight it tooth and nail, and probably block state take-over at lower costs.
Medicare and Medicaid could remain as health insurance only for the elderly or indigent, and might not have as much stress caused by private insurers who are often busy denying claims or pushing claims into these agencies laps.
Grimmace: We don't need any successful state models. We already have a bunch - every other industrialized nation in the world has successful single-payer government-run health care systems.
And all these other countries spend about half as much per person as we do. What do you (and other conservatives) have against saving money?
I would challenge those statistics in the first place, but anyway there are just too many differences between those countries to use as a model for our own.
One of the problems for healthcare in the U.S. is simply our crappy diet and lifestyles -- far worse than most of the other countries being measured against. That is a personal choice issue and not a reflextion bad or good on our current healthcare system.
Grimmace: Our lifestyles and diets don't help us stay healthy - you are absolutely right about that. More exercise would help a lot too.
I don't see how America is so different from France, Canada, England, or any of the other industrialized nations that we can't learn anything from them.
I would be happy to see the hundreds of billions of dollars that now go to insurance company overhead (profits, CEO salaries and bonuses, advertising, etc.) used to help sick people instead.
I can hardly stand to be around my Republican friends lately. They enjoy bashing the president, crying the blues about medicare and they are filled with such hatred that none of them would ever see a good thing come out of Obama.
What confuses me is Medicare is socialized medicine. It works well. Obama said no cuts will be made to medicare.I will say this.....everyone needs to chill. They need to enjoy life. Not be so fanatical that they may lose all their friends!I for one am not going to sit and bash my President.
The Republicans fought against Social Security and they opposed Medicare as "socialized medicine." How can anybody take them seriously as defenders of the interests of senior citizens?
Republicans as a party haven't told the full unambiguous truth about ANYTHING since 1980.
Right wing vs Left wing........Both sides arguing like children.
Some of you forgot to type
Na na na na na at the end
The Republican Party wasn't created and didn't develop as a Party for the common man. It sprang from Whig Party roots, which had become too disconnected with the needs and aspirations of most Americans of the mid-nineteenth century.
Lincoln won the presidency on a plurality vote as the South seceded from the Union and the Civil War began.
With the exception of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, the Republicans never had a leader who cared or connected with the working class.
The Republican Party's mission has always been to protect the perks and privileges of the wealthy in America and their evil spawn, the corporations.
Since the majority of the people don't identify as Republicans, the Party had to cobble together other issues to seem appealing.
Ergo: they latched onto bogus issues like "family values" even though they wreck families with their hostility to minimum wage increases or family leave programs, they gutter-snipe with slanders like "The Swiftboat liars," or "Pro-life crocodile tears for the Unborn," or "Death Panels" to destroy a public option health plan that would decrease private health insurance profits.
In short, the Republican Party represents a very small (and very rich) constituency in America, and in order to remain viable they must lie and fear-monger. And they do with large assists from obscenely overpaid media-whores such as Fake News, Flush Limbo and Drudge the sludge.
What is always shocking and appalling is how many Americans are duped and doped by Republican machinations!
peroscope, I buy you a virtual drink and toast to you. Truer words were never spoken.
Kyl, the same creep that doesn't want basic maternity care in health care "reform" because HE can't use it, wants us to believe ANYthing he says from now on? The party that wants to eliminate abortions doesn't want health care for mothers?The obvious answer for how AZ voters should help the nation is to help Kyl to stay home instead of in D.C. where he's more susceptible to lobbyists' than to voters' will.
Yes the new medicare GOP stance is remarkable in every way. However, during the election there were hints of this.
When Palin came to my town she announced a breaking news campaign promise. She declared how she would expand programs(and expenses) for special needs children. I know my primary concern at this critical time was how I would keep my business in motion during the already obvious downturn.
I still can't believe I'm the "Rhino".
I understand your consternation about keeping your small business afloat. The middle class has been under siege for 8 years and it will be a long while before the middle class makes any gains during the projected long recession, despite the Dems' commitment to make that happen. We're in for a long slog.
As for your experience with Palin's announcement about funding for special needs children, that was strictly to add some gloss to her 'motherhood". Palin said what she did to make herself look caring, but her own health care track record in AK shows her for the hypocrite that she is: http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/864670.html
Sounds like the old folks in Alaska have bigger problems than "death panels", like dying before they can even be seen by, what I would call, "a death panel"
We always look to our elders for guidance and wisdom, but now they are allowing dumbells to shape their future. Wake-up!
"and we are not saved..."
Those old folks know better than to listen to a bunch of know-it-all know-nothings. They have years of healthcare and health insurance experience on you...... they don't need you to tell them squat.
It doesn't pass the stink test or the common sense test.
If there's billions of dolllars that can be cut in Medicare without having any impact on the seniors, why haven't the democrats addressed this before? That should have been brought up at least in 2004, 2006 or before. And certainly should have been their first priority in this term! Hey, we could have paid for the bailouts or a good hunk of the stimulus with this.
Both Hillary and Obama proposed a bipartisan commission to fix Medicare. The liberals greatest program requires a bipartisan commission to fix it. Fix? Bipartisan commission?
Translation - it's an unsustainable program, that can't be fixed by either party because the only fix is to cut benefits which is political suicide. This is the example liberals use as evidence that their public option is a good idea!!
Liberal programs need repair because at some point they're administered by conservos who hated the programs in the first place. The conservos botch up the works, so libs, when they're brought back, have to spend time and money to fix them. Bush tried to make a monkey's breakfast of SS but, luckily, he was stopped.
Bunk. . The model was unsustainable from day 1. Before the silly thing was even past, the fact that it wouldnt' pay for itself by the time the young at the time retired. This reform doesnt' even fix it. That's still coming down the road. And now you want to use the "we'll just kick the costs down the road" approach for a public option. Well there's no road to kick down now.
pacifistgunslinger - Great point. The same thing occurs with public schools in the South. Most whites can afford to send their kids to private schools so the public schools are extremely underfunded and predominantly minority.
The whole "school voucher" program is their way to finally kill public education is this country.
With apologies to Bill Safire, TA is just a "nattering nabob of negativism" - he just criticizes; he never wants to do anything.
ThinkAgain, I contributed to Social Security since I was 12 years old in the late 40's. There was an adjustment to compensate for the baby boomers in the 80's, and if left untouched, Soc Sec is solvent until 2018.
I have been drawing benefits--that I paid for--for 6 years,now, and I'm covered by Medicare. How can you possibly say that these programs don't work?
I know how much you wingnuts hate change of any kind--it frightens you, and we're all very sorry. But some more changes will have to be made to accommodate current conditions. What's the BFD?
I see we have a pompous pillar of peturbation among us.
Spotted- easily among the inane and banal uttering of so named, the pious poltroon.
Keep thinking. Healthcare was Obama's first priority, he was handed the failed economy and yet still managed to broach the topic in his first 100 days. Not so sure about your common sense argument of well, if the money is there, why wasn't it identified before....that logic right there, stinks!
Obama was bogged in the failed economy? Doing what? NOT reading the stimulus? Letting Congress stuff all their little worthless pork in it and passing it in the middle of the night to avoid pesky politics? Hmmm, a couple of speeches just wears him out does it?
Lying is the name of the game for far to many regardless of party. This is the great disaster. You can not believe anyone anymore. They do this with a straight face. No one challenges what is being said on the Cable stations. Are they afraid they will not come back on the show. If every show did it they where would they go with their lies? I wish there was another station that just laid out the lies everyday. Maybe Jon Stewart could do another show for one hour daily just addressing the lies of the day.
When have the Repiblican's ever (in rcent history) been the party of "fiscal sanity"? That's a myth if I've ever heard one. They have been the party of debt-and-spend for decades, racking up a vast majority of the very same debt they are now complaining about. And the ratio of their debt-and-spend has far exceeded the Democrats ratio of tax-and-spend, which is why, present crisis excepted, our debt only gets smaller during Democrat Presidential tenures. Fiscally responsible Repblicans. Is that a joke?
Tax and spend equals fiscal responsibility.
Borrow and spend equals fiscal irresponsibility.
the repubs are not bright enough to have fashioned the strong negative reaction to obamacare. but they are approximately intelligent enough to recognize a wave when they see it and they are going to ride it, that's all there is to it.
the dems with their chaotic approach to creating and selling the concept stepped on their own toes. i'm independent, voted for obama and think it would be best for the country if the dems could get things right because they have complete control. but they have kicked this can around so blithely that they now see the ghost of future election losses and they are stumbling.
the next time a dem apologist comes up with this all powerful repub drivel how about the rest of you dems telling him to stuff it, quite looking for excuses, you have the power, all you have to do is come up with the right answer.
This is really getting me nervous... Its seems the fight if we do move forward on this discussion is going to get ugly and I don't like it.
In the future, it will be taxes vs. healthcare...
If we don't raise taxes (they will only go higher and never lower), then we won't have enough money for Granny... thus we will have rationing(at some point). There is no money tree or endless supply of money.
So if I am against raising taxes in the future, when we have a government plan in place, then I will be portrayed as against granny and for rationing in our healthcare system.
When in reality, right here, right now, I enjoy my own healthcare and want lower taxes and lower waste of my money spent by the government.
The government thinks that this is their money. It's not. The costs for this will equal the our past/current war efforts. Both mistakes. This will be a burden for the next 3 generations to come.
Did you mind Bushboy allocating $1 trillion for senseless war in Iraq? Did you mind Bushboy depleting the U.S. Treasury of another $1 trillion with his tax cuts for the rich?
But now, you mind any taxes that might go to support public healthcare? Even though the plan can be constructed to be revenue neutral (i.e., not raise taxes).
Maybe it's just the fact that the poor will get healthcare that bothers you or that the profiteering health insurers might actually have competition, instead of an immoral monopoly.
Spending money on bad things is good.
Spending money on good things is bad.
Such is the way of the modern Republican.
aackc1: If you want lower taxes, you shouldn't have supported Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43, who ran up $9 trillion in national debt. So you owe the government a bunch of money. You are going to be paying this off soon, which means higher taxes. Too bad, buddy...
The only budget surplus in the last 60 years was under Democrat Bill Clinton. If you wanted fiscal responsibility, you should have been voting Democrat all these years.
I am a "real" Republican. I do not agree with what my party has turned into. Maybe I shouldn't even call myself a Republican anymore. I am not a Democrat, but voted for one for the first time.
Republicans get your heads out of your a--es. This is not what we are! I do not appreciated you scaring my 90 year old grandmother. She truly believes that she will have to go to a death panel. And she thinks that her family with have no say in how she receives her medical care. You people make me sick. You Lie!
Kristina205: Since Nixon's "Southern Strategy", expanded under Reagan, the Republican party has been taken over by Christian conservative extremists, as you are doubtless aware.
Unfortunately, these people are virtually the entire party base now. Republican politicians are truly screwed - to get nominated, they must appeal to the base (or else lose to more conservative opponents during the primaries). To win, they must appeal to independents and conservative Democrats, which costs them their base (and the election).
The party is dying, and I do not see how it can escape from its trap.
...and what's really scary that since the Christers have taken over the Republican Party, it has become more mean-spirited, reactionary, and unscrupulous. Thank you, Jaysus!
Scopey... easy there. I think Bush was an ass, and Obama Bush is quickly filling his shoes, actually quicker then I thought.
Yes I did mind about the two wars and we are paying for it now. Is your thought process, that Bush made mistakes, therefore its OK, for Obama Bush and Rahm Rove make us pay for more?
Please give me examples of government run programs where no taxes were raised? Revenue neutral is a fantasy? Prove it with numbers, not rhetoric.
Your judgement on Bushboy was good, but I think you're rushing to judgement on Obama. He inherited the worst mess, internationally and domestically, since FDR and he's only been in office 10 months, and you already have him filling Bushboy's shoes?
As far as revenue neutral goes, the public option for healthcare is supposed to represent the healthcare for the poor and lower middleclass, who won't be able to afford the private insurance rates, but they will be charged a lesser rate for the public healthcare which will pay for the program.
There are many benefits to be derived from this, including competition for the private insurers to keep costs down, insuring people who otherwise couldn't afford it, and taking the cost off of ERs at local hospitals, which are paid for by local taxes that you and I pay.
I'd say that's a pretty good deal, wouldn't you?
Scopey... Did you read my post?
Please give me examples of government run programs where no taxes were raised? Revenue neutral is a fantasy? Prove it with numbers, not rhetoric....
You have no answer. The annswer you give makes no sense...
As far as revenue neutral goes, the public option for healthcare is supposed to represent the healthcare for the poor and lower middleclass, who won't be able to afford the private insurance rates, but they will be charged a lesser rate for the public healthcare which will pay for the program.
There are many benefits to be derived from this, including competition for the private insurers to keep costs down, insuring people who otherwise couldn't afford it, and taking the cost off of ERs at local hospitals, which are paid for by local taxes that you and I pay.
In regards, to Obama Bush... not a good start in my book. It just looks like Obama Bush is trying to pay back his special interest groups and campaign contributors.
I would say we had financial institutions that were to big too fail under Bush. Now those same companies are even bigger! They are also using our tax dollars that they are putting in jeopardy everyday.What are their consequences? None, we will have to bail them out again?
What has Obama Bush done, nothing except take more campaign contributions.
Auto company bailouts? Why? For what reason and purpose? Why did the government break all bond covenants proteceted by chapter 11 bankruptcy and hand over majority ownership of the companies when they owed less then 15% of the bonds? Why, so he could receive more campaign contributions from his industrial unions.
Next, let's piss off the Chinese and screw with a tarriff in order to sell tires here in the US. Let's piss the largest growing, most popoulated nation on our planet and at the same time is the largest holder and purchaser of our debt. Why to pander to his industrial unions.
That same debt we would use to fund your fantasy of revenue neutral healthcare.
Great Job Mr. President! Hope & Change!!!!!!!!
All of you miss the larger issue: that of fiscal sanity. To restore that to USA and rapidly expand the economy at least two things must be done for a great beginning: ABOLISH SOCIAL SECURITY and MEDICARE.
Together these programs will bleed the economy and will to work to death.
As a former employer, it was tough to make the required one half of the contributions to SS and Medicare for our employees, but that was a part of doing business, and it must remain so, despite the lack of credit given to employers by those who now say what you say.
And ps beezlebub
Those obligations never affected wages in any way. There were no negotiations every time the payroll taxes were increased.
beezlebub: Nonsense. It is time to double taxes and start paying off our national debt. Perhaps we can triple yours as a special favor.
Realistically, if you think the Republican tea parties were bad, wait until you see millions of seniors rioting against your proposals.
Abolish all the Bush/Cheney wars and repeal their tax cuts.
Sen. Kyl of Arizona (R) has represented an outspoken opposition to healthcare reform recently. I have no problem with disagreement and debate, but he shocked me recently by stating that he didn't think health plans should include basic maternity care because he himself did not require it, so he shouldn't have to pay for it, as it would make his plan more expensive.
That right there, to me, is the epitome of the philosophical differences that are playing out in this debate. I feel that this "rugged individualism" that is so prized in the US (sometimes for good reason) has gone too far in the arena of health care. Since he won't be popping out a baby any time soon, Kyl can't fathom why something like this would be essential not only to women, but to society as a whole. If he wants to debate semantics, that's fine, but I found his comment to be very telling.
onward-and-upward: Kyl is a true conservative: "I've got mine - f**k you!"
How very "Pro-Life" of Senator Kyl!
Now, for the Gold in the Hypocritical Bastard event, what is his stand on Viagra for Medicare recipients?
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.