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Why the 'Trigger' Will Work
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Health care's public-option “trigger” is great news for liberals and conservatives alike, writes former Clinton aide Matt Miller, because it gives both groups exactly what they want.
In my younger and more vulnerable years, as an aide in the last Democratic White House, President Bill Clinton said something that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. It came during a health-care meeting in the Cabinet Room in 1994, during which Clinton shared a conversation he’d had with Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia. Then, as now, the question of how to “bend the curve” on health costs was the seminal issue in health reform, and Nunn had spent several days caucusing with assorted provider groups in his state in search of an answer. Nunn told Clinton the consensus among industry leaders was clear. “Just give us the number,” they’d told Nunn, meaning the slower growth rate of health costs the country could afford to spend. “We’ll figure out how to divvy it up so it works.”
Just give us the number. Unlike many advanced nations, which run health expenses through the government’s books, the United States doesn’t have a global budget for health care. This, and the fact that Americans pay directly for only a small portion of their own health spending (and thus have little incentive to be smart shoppers), helps explain why costs are out of control. Everyone agrees that U.S. health care is radically inefficient. We spend 17 percent of our GDP while other wealthy nations spend 10 to 11 percent. Yet we have no better health outcomes to show for this excess expense, and shamefully leave 50 million people uninsured. We also have huge regional swings in the utilization of various procedures and services that bear no relation to outcomes.
If we emerge from this year’s epic health legislation without having done anything to re-engineer the cost of health-care delivery, today’s achievements will be short-lived.
Despite this proof of inefficiency, any proposal to slow the growth of health costs is met with doomsday cries from hospitals, doctors, insurers, medical-device makers, drug companies, nursing homes, and more. The iron law of health-care politics holds: Every dollar of health-care “waste” is somebody’s dollar of income. Reformers know that efforts to clamp down on costs this year have been largely gutted by the medical industrial complex. The pilots of new payment systems and similar innovations in the emerging health bills may offer some promising directions in the decade ahead. But no one should pretend they’ll save real money any time soon.
This presents a dilemma. If we emerge from this year’s epic health legislation without having done anything to re-engineer the cost of health-care delivery, today’s achievements will be short-lived. Lawmakers already have to fudge the numbers to create the illusion of insurance affordability and deficit neutrality. As health costs continue to climb, we’ll either bust the budget in order to lift subsidies for health insurance ever higher, or the government will exempt more Americans from a mandate to buy coverage, destabilizing the risk pool and sending premiums through the roof.
The only way to avoid these grim scenarios is to get serious about costs. The most politically viable way to do this is what Nunn told Clinton 15 years ago: “Give them the number.” The device for doing this can be the so-called public-option “trigger.”
How might that work? First, the government would define what affordable coverage means at differing levels of income. For example, families earning less than $25,000 might be expected to spend no more than 3 percent of their income on premiums for decent health coverage; those earning $50,000 no more than 5 percent; and so on. Each state or region would be required to offer several competing affordable options for citizens after the implementation of the new insurance exchanges. If a state or regional exchange failed to offer these affordable options, a new public program would be launched that meets these criteria.
The idea is to create, for the first time, a forcing device that compels the entire health sector to organize and compete around meeting newly defined metrics of affordability. The collective fear of an actual public option would lead the industry to rethink current practices in order to avoid the dreaded “trigger.”
Insurers, who until now have vowed to fight any version of a public option to the death, should in fact welcome this forcing device. Why? Because it’s the only way they can halt the industry’s descent from merely being demonized today to facing the regulatory equivalent of lynch mobs tomorrow. It is insurers, after all, who will be blamed as health premiums continue to soar. Yet this blame will largely be unfair. The dirty little secret of health care is that it is not the market power of insurers that fuels health costs, but the local market power of doctor groups, hospital chains, and other local provider oligopolies. Insurers today lack the clout to fight the terms offered by the big local provider organizations (if they want to serve a market, for example, there’s no choice but to include the big local doctor group in their network). And they’ll never persuade ambitious attorneys general to run the political risk of cracking down on overreaching doctors and hospitals—these “good guys” hold sway over elected officials in every district.
The public-option trigger would thus give health plans the tool they’ve lacked to force an entirely new set of negotiations about cost-effective care delivery in every market. The fear of God—or, at least, of Uncle Sam—would finally give health plans a chance to contribute to society by boosting the value Americans get from every health-care dollar.
Liberals who prefer an immediate and national public option should be comfortable with a trigger in the end. After all, the goal is affordable health care for every American—the public option is merely a means to that end. If the trigger threat makes it happen, great; and if it doesn’t do the trick, the public option clicks in. Republicans who are serious about health costs should also cheer this approach because it sets a broad public goal and only adds new government action if the private sector can’t deliver. (Of course Republicans won’t support it because they won’t support anything that helps President Obama, but that doesn’t mean GOP ideas won’t have been included.)
With Nancy Pelosi lacking the votes for a full public option in the House, and Olympia Snowe pledging to withhold her vote if a full public option is added in the Senate, the policy and political logic of the public-option trigger will soon be irresistible.
Matt Miller, a former Clinton White House aide, is the host of the public radio program, "Left, Righj & Center," and the author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas. In recent years he has given paid speeches or paid advice to doctor groups, hospitals, pharmaceutical firms and insurance companies, as well as to low income advocacy groups promoting universal coverage.
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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.
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When even the NRA is against a trigger, something is up.
I am an independent candidate for president. My comment is a Health Care solution that does not involve insurance companies or government bureaucracy.
Health Care is an issue that ties up one sixth of our economy!
We can agree our economy, as heartbeat, is near collapse. The dollar is in the dumpster for months, and it could permanently go lower; exacerbating one of our prob limbs, the growing rolls who lost their health care insurance along with their jobs.
My Loose Penny Program, presented here, is a capital injection that will instantly begin to repair our economic muscle, by repairing our health care delivery. As you will see, my program will cover everyone without insurance, lower the cost of delivery, at the same time actually saving the government money. But to create actual fresh jobs inour 'e con oh me," mission critical diplomacy is required.
President Obama needs to get off the fly around health care campaign trail, wipe down the makeup on his eyelids (with cold cream) and summon all our fast foods, supermarket; Target and Wal-Mart CEO's to the White House to ink my proposed infusion solution.
There is only one flaw with this proposal. It is mine, my 'out-of-the-box approach. I have an expressed stake in the political process as a candidate for president. Adopting my program acknoledges my candidacy. The White House people don't want that, and Obama doesn't have a clue about michaelslevinson.com.
Were Obama's advisors only willing to set that issue aside the nation would benefit!
Obama went to Cairo and Copenhagen. He can meet with KFC. Your loose pocket change will make the mission critical health care diff rinse.
Every chain must participate in my Loose Pennies Program, regardless the size of their enterprise. My purpose: an additional two-cents in the cash registers of many thousands of locations nationwide, wherever we fast food eat and shop. For every item registered over the counter we want two pennies extra, added as patriotic gratuity.
This proposal is not for a government mandate. Anyone can refuse to pay the voluntary two cents gratuity. Burger, fries and a drink totals six extra cents, pennies off the pavement. Regardless what we purchase at the market; we are only pitching in some loose change out of pocket. 40 items at the supermarket could easily add up to $150. Does another 80 cents inhibit your generosity?
A worker chosen by the workers to represent them can meet with the managers to approve the total pennies for everything out the door the week before, dividing that total by everyone's hours worked.
Then we include up to $2 dollars extra for every hour worked in the worker's paychecks. A $5 deduct for a Medical Malpractice Pool is also on my planing board, which employers don't have to match, so their sticker prices won't rise from any extra cost of doing business.
The participating chains won't be squeezed from our Medical Assurance pay raise, that, a plus minus spreadsheet wash!
The worker's pay increase doesn't come out of management's pocket, but work place production will increase. When someone quits, the crew might ask the boss to leave them pick up the slack, so they earn more money!
The overage, beyond the $2 dollars hourly extra in every pay check, goes to an interest bearing Medical Savings Account, with the worker's name on his or her portion. Two dollars an hour in a forty hour week is more than $4000 a year in extra dough, our gratuity for the "po."
There are other long term innovative possibilities because the prime issue here is Health Care. We gladly give the two penny gratuity because the benefit, besides a pay raise for the working clearly not-so-rich, will lower the cost of medicl delivery for all of us.
The president can ask everyone on the low end of the economic chain to divide their bounty as follows, at least what I am guaranteeing Iam going to do as president:
The president can order the $2 an hour extra be a take home half in cash, with the balance going to dramatically sprout these proposed Medical Savings Accounts, a health care solution for at least ten million uninsured people.
More than ten million of the uninsured people will have their medical care access guaranteed. The medical savings account, as a health care solution beats health insurance!
Insurance companies are dedicated to making money, not protecting the sick from financial disaster. When an insurance company cancels your policy because you have an expensive disease, they don't refund your premium. But with a Health Assurance Savings Account, when you quit or get fired from the job, your medical savings account goes with you!
After a year behind the fast food counter, a 40-hour per week worker could have more than two grand in their Health Assurance account. Ten million uninsured people at the bottom of our economic food chain might not have health care insurance but all would carry Health Assurance.
In the event they don't feel right they have access to medical care, and a second opinion, because the money to pay is there! When it's your money, unneeded procedures evaporate.
Other companies, besides the fast food chains could have the "public Lev option" of creating Medical Savings Accounts, in lieu of providing an insurance policy for their workers.
A sensible choice solution eliminates the insurance company monopolies. A worker could voluntarily opt out of his company's insurance policy. The employer's end would go into his paycheck, a raise in take home pay. The half the worker was paying would still be withheld, and go into the worker's Medical Assurance Savings Account.
In lots of companies a portion of the workers would jump on the idea of a pay raise while they build a Medical Savings Account, personal "insuring" they have the money to pay for health care in the event they need it.
Is there any government bureaucracy involved in my program? Is my proposal a thousand pages of unreadable language?
This two cents program works for the medical professional, too. You agree to the fee, the doctor swipes your Medical Assurance card and the money is debited from your Health Assurance account on the spot. The Dr.'s cost layer represented by his required compliance with the insurance company bureaucrat is out of the mix.
This proposed over-the-counter voluntary two-cent gratuity, $344 dollars monthly doesn't bash government. These out of pocket pennies go to the working not so rich, without intrusion. Government bureaus are by-passed, except to investigate anonymous complaints about businesses that may be cheating their workers.
In all the dry cleaners add a nickel to every shirt pressed, a dime for every dry cleaned piece. In all the family operated dry cleaners, medical savings accounts will replace the worker's share of their family's health insurance.
This 2 cents extra covers 90% of all the minimum and lower wage jobs in USA, many millions of people benefiting, juicing the recovery by pumping the bottom of our economic chain, enriching the people most likely to purchase goods with their money!
The fresh dollars these people spend will create jobs.Those in low echelon hourly jobs, working 40 hours a week will have $80 extra weekly in his or her pay envelope, the diff rinse between scraping by and getting ahead; the actual advantage of $75 gross after a $5 per week set aside for our Medical Malpractice Pool, $35 cash in their pay with a minimum $35 earmarked for Health Assurance savings.
To restate: $2 an hour X 40 hours is $80 fresh dollars a week, $344 a month, more than $4000 fresh dollars a year going to more than ten million UNINSURED working people, based on our voluntary two pennies on every item over the counter in all the fast food chains, WalMart, KMart, Target, and every supermarket chain.
The $80 extra a week is divided in half. $40 for pay envelopes, less $5 for the Malpractice Insurance Pool and $40 for Medical Savings Accounts, less $5 of that set aside for the Catastophic Insurance Pool. Dr.'s are invited to join the Malpractice Pool by paying $5 into the pool per office visit.
We invite doctors and dentists, the med professionals to participate in our Malpractice Pool with $5 per visit, so they can down the road, cancel their Malpractice insurance.
Then we establish a reasonable award for all the different malpractice possibilities, allowing the aggrieved party to get a lawyer in the event there is a disagreement. This lowers the cost of a Doctor being a Doctor and gives us a chance to develop a public access data base that identifies doctors who are repeat malpractitioners.
On the $5 a week set aside from the Medical Assurance Savings Accounts going into a Catastrophic Coverage fund. You are working for five years at Burger King. You are an assistant manager. You started out flipping burgers and stayed with your Medical Assurance Savings. You have kidney failure, need dialysis while waiting for a kidney transplant. That is catastrophic. The catastrophic pool picks up the cost so your medical Savings account is not instantly depleted. Your spouse and off spring can still see a doctor!
Millions of uninsured not so rich people building Medical Assurance Accounts will directly benefit from this voluntary deal. We gain from tipping our pennies to working folks, as these millions of uninsured won't be crowding emergency clinics for care, which we all pay for, a tremendous savings for the taxpayer!
Emergency health care cost is infected by the actuarial projections of how many uninsured people might use an emergency room walk-in for care during the course of any year.
Working people in min-wage jobs with Health Assurance accounts pay for their access on a need-to-be seen basis. In addition to medical savings accounts, the two cents gratis could secure a million mortgages near default, a contribution to neighborhood health as deserted house disease is a cancer that devalues the whole street.
For the rest of our uncovered citizenry, doctors and dentists must be allowed the volunteer opportunity to do tax deductible charity, treating them. A charity patient is anyone without insurance. The plan: doctors do $50,000 in charitable medical services and deduct the $50,000 off the top of their federal tax. Then, after all the deductions, the doctors take an additional half off their bottom line; twenty-five thousand or half, whichever is greater.
Medical professionals could perform $100,000 in charity and deduct $50,000 off their tax, and because they only owed $49,000 in taxes, earn a one thousand dollar income tax credit. This health care approach cost effectively makes sense.
Doctors won't be at the mercy of an insurance companies,' take it or leave payment for services rendered. People suffering from unaffordable premiums, with pre-assurance from their physicians, will begin to cancel their overpriced insurance policies.
Every doctor will have a waiting list of patients waiting to be classified as charity. Doctors will have more patients, their work incentive, Freedom of Income Tax.
Isn't this one-line change in our tax code easier to digest than a thousand page med-reform stick-it-to-us vaccination, unread even by its authors, our congress? Would insurance company's shills show up at town hall meetings screaming, "It's a communist plot! Down with their two cents for medical savings accounts?"
Every doctor and dentist will have a sign on the door: "No insurance? I'm here."
These ideas will enrich our economy from the bottom up, possibly save a million mortgages, and insure access to health care services for many, if not all the millions of uninsured people, whilst leaving the rip off insurance companies out.
The long-term solution to our health care prob limb is free medical education for doctors, dentists, and all related personal, our goal one hundred thousand doctors graduated every year until we have one family doctor for every thousand people. A national marijuana tax could fund this program, as could a three per cent reduction in military expenditures. Politishinz are good at identifying issues but fold their intestinal fortitude as those who finance their campaigns govern the solutions.
In that light, the above proposed change in our tax code, encouraging doctors and dentists to treat the uninsured as a deductible charity, could not pass either House of our current congress absent a million person public outcry first.
Robert J. Samuelson wrote, in the Monday, September 14, 2009 The Washington Post:
"Americans generally want three things from their health-care system. First, they think that everyone has a moral right to needed care; that suggests universal insurance. Second, they want choice; they want to select their doctors -- and want doctors to determine treatment. Finally, people want costs controlled; health care shouldn't consume all private compensation or taxes."
The above Loose Penny Solution covers all of these issues. On Sixty Minutes, September 13, president Obama repeated, "All Americans will be required to have insurance, but those who can't afford it will get subsidies." Health Assurance Savings accounts are a better idea.
Obama's plan: Subsidizing an insurance policy creates a whole new layer of bureaucracy which is unaffordable and unnecessary.
I am the unknown poet, a long-time candidate for president, roasting in the sun.
Once upon a time our Fourth Estate was independent, standing watch, reporting true. Today's corporate approach to politics locks out the unknowns who seek public office, a primary reason there aren't any candidates. You announce, "I'm a candidate." The editor's don't ask, "What are your ideas?" But, "Show us twenty million dollars." And without access to buckets of ducats, the access to broadcast speech, to present their platforms is also blocked. Blog in the bog, dog.
We need to renew our politics, starting with the reestablishment of our First Amendment Right to televised political speech. Upon this essay, I requested e quill time of our television networks, to give my independents' response to president Obama's health care speech to the congress, which was broadcast by the networks and cable networks aired live, September 9, 2009.
I am preparing my petition for the court. The issue of my First Amendment Right to speak will go to the Supreme Court.
michaelslevinson.com
My God, are you long-winded. Suffice it to say that "Trigger" was Roy Rogers' horse and let it go at that!
Wow! I've been Levinsoned.
Like, nobody gives a damn about your self-promotion.
Lighten up, Francis.
What a waste of space.
An ideal candidate for office, though. Puts the people to sleep with his blatherings and then runs legislation though without protest.
Sorry, we already have that.
As with today's public option surveys, polls on importation showed strong national support for the concept. So rather than murder the drug legislation outright, congressional leaders joined the Clinton and Bush administrations in backing a "compromise": Importation bills were passed, but only those that gave the secretary of Health and Human Services the power to trigger -- or not trigger -- final implementation. Specifically, the secretary would have to first certify that imported medicines were "safe." (Drug companies promote the lie that Canadian medicine is mortally dangerous -- prompting Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an importation proponent, to ask, "Where are the dead Canadians?")
This trigger provision, of course, was lobbyists' poison pill -- and it worked as they planned. Importation has never been implemented, as no HHS secretary has pulled the trigger. Hence, Americans are still barred from wholesale importation of lower-priced medicine -- and pharmaceutical industry profiteering continues.
The moral of the story is that triggers are just another version of the old Blue Ribbon Commission trick. They are designed not as good public policy, but as devious political tactics to help dishonest lawmakers look as if they support popular measures -- all while guaranteeing those measures never become reality.
On importation, triggers gave corporatist politicians a way to seem like they were remaining true to their pro-consumer platitudes and "free trade" dogma at the same time they were strengthening an extreme form of anti-consumer protectionism for pharmaceutical companies. On health reform, a trigger will let those same legislators look as if they support a public option that increases insurance competition, reduces costs and therefore delivers on promises to decrease the deficit. But if/when the bill's final language is inevitably designed to make pulling any trigger impossible, it will preclude a public option from ever existing.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/12/trigger/index.html
Oh, yea, "Salon on-line" now there is a true liberal (read communist) rag you can quote, when you need a paper-thin excuse for you rationalisation. The 'trigger' is not another trick, ala the Blue-Ribbon panel - the Left will try any trick in the book to pull the "trigger", and hence execute the "public option". It is a back-door, gutless, way of getting the public option in the bill.
Nice name calling.....if you get anywhere near a fact, let me know?
Here's why the trigger is idiocy. http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/trigger-happy
"A workable trigger would, at a minimum, need to achieve three goals: (1) establish a reasonable and measurable standard for private plan performance that sets out clear affordability and cost-containment goals for a specifically defined package of benefits, (2) assess this standard in a timely fashion with information available to policymakers after reform legislation passes, and (3) if this standard were met, quickly create a public health insurance plan that would effectively remedy the situation."
And we all know what the trigger got us on the bill that "legalized" prescription drug purchases from overseas for individuals. The trigger was set so it would never be pulled and it never has been.
We DO NOT need the trigger. If there has to be something to mollify the idiot blue dogs, let it be the opt out public option.
Then put the public option in place instead of just threatening to do so at some indefinite time in the future. That will REALLY put the fear of God in all of them.
I hope I am wrong, but dont think the Senate has the intestinal fortitude to do what is right for the populous.
I hope you're wrong, too, but I think you're right.
My sentiment EXACTLY!! What reason would they have to fear the government. They are all in bed TOGETHER!!
We are being gamed..
The U.S. Senate has 'intestinal fortitude'?? Since when does a modern politician operate on anything but the fear of not being re-elected? The true is "GUTS" - or the lack thereof - and the fact that the current senate fears that will have to go home and make an honest living, instead of being fed by lobbyists, and PACs, and other low lifes?
I don't mean to seem naïve, but i just wonder with the trigger, if the industry won't simply behave until the deadline for the trigger passes?
Much like the bully who won't beat you up while the teacher is standing in the hall.
patriotchick: The trigger will be in financial terms, rather than a date. The real question, as sonofloud points out, is whether any regulatory agency (or Congress) will ever pull the trigger.
The same forces that are opposed to the single payer or the public option will just start their whining when it's time to pull the trigger and there it will end mandated insurance with no control on the monopoly
At this point, they need to do whatever is required to get to the 60 # in the Senate and a Guaranteed majority in The House.
bobj72: The House is no problem - Pelosi is tough. The question in the Senate is whether Reid can get 60 votes for cloture of a Republican filibuster. If he can, then 51 votes (or 50 votes plus Joe Biden's tie-breaker vote) will pass a health care reform bill.
The only way to fair insurance premiums and equitable healthcare for everyone is the PUBLIC OPTION, not some gambled "trigger" that will NEVER give power to the buying public $$. The way to the insurance companies collective hearts (hmmm...) is to knock them a little in the wallet area. They've taken the American public for plenty $B in faulty policies, maximum thresholds and everything to do with formulating the "policies" that are designed to "enhance" the insureds (insurance policy holder/employees) lives. The Devil is definitely in the details folks, you just don't know how much money these insurance companies have pulled from your pocket and that of your parents all this time thinking in your childish minds that they care. Well, the politicians don't care either so make them give us a PUBLIC OPTION and more choices never hurt anyone with a brain.
The trigger is not a compromise because there never will be an actual trigger. Republucans are just hoping the Democrats will be satisfied in postponing health care that we desperately need now.
Insurance companies are not going to follow the regulations, and will never look out for everyday people until COMPETITION gives them the incentive to do so.
You silly socialists,all standing there with your hands out waiting for your tax-funded freebies.Where's your self-respect?Increase competition and lower costs,don't throw out the whole system.The gov. should help those who are legal americans but can't afford health care or have been turned down due to existing conditions,which is around 10-15 million people,other than that let the free market do its thing, work harder and pay your own way.
Well, I'm pro-public option, pro-universal healthcare in fact, because I'm a freelancer with a variable income that makes committing to high monthly insurance payments very difficult. (Look, I don't own a car or much else, either.) I believe universal healthcare would actually stimulate economic growth by allowing people to start small businesses more easily.
However, I do find government regulation that is so clearly pro-pharmaceutical is a major problem. We're in this halfway house, where we don't have a developed nation's healthcare system, and yet medicine is regulated in ways that no other country without a public option is.
For instance, if I want to by a cheapo health care plan that, for instance, only covers me for physical disease (no anti-depressants, Viagra, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety meds, etc), I can't. I can't form a company that allows poor people to agree to cover each other in case of physical disease or accidents, every plan requires me to buy other members expensive pills for insomnia and anxiety, rather than asking them to cut down on the coffee. Plans can legally omit dental coverage, why not mental health coverage? We uninsured types don't have access to it anyway, it's not like we're losing anything except higher premiums.
Second, I must have a prescription for non-addictive medications like antibiotics. Ie, pay $50 to a doctor for the privilege of buying medication for my sinus infection. No other country in the world that lacks public health care requires that.
Socialism for rich corporations, "free market" for consumers is BS. If we can't unite to cover health care for individuals, I do hope you Libertarian types will push for less regulation of medications and required mental health coverage for bargain-basement individual insurance.
@ reality4all
And so what do you have to say to the silly socialists who lost their jobs, a number increasing every month, with no end in sight? Is this the 'don't get sick, die quickly' advice you are dispensing to your neighbors?
What a lovely society you aspire to as biologies are left to run rampant at your local McDonald's, or worse yet, Grocery Store. Showing little concern of your neighbor's plight is simple abuse, showing little concern for your own survival might be called something else.
I say perhaps you shouldn't have allowed so many illegal immigrants to come across the border and saturate the job market.I would say that perhaps insisting on everybody being able to buy a home despite there credit was a stupid Liberal idea and is the root cause of there job loss and I would also tell them that there about to make an even dumber decision by allowing the government to get further involved in there health care.I think government run healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen.Never trust the government,they are less trustworthy than ceo's and that says alot.
Reality4all:
Saying the credit crisis was a liberal idea does not make it so. Learn to read, and find out what actually happened. Listening to Rush doesn't count as reading.
Oh, and also, did you forget again that you live in the USA? WE are our government that you so distrust. Get involved if you don't like it, or go back to your bunker.
Barney Frank is what happened! like all liberal rebuttals,yours is full of insults,short on facts.
Reality4all:
You silly, short-minded scrooge, all standing there with your purse full of money as if you're always going to be completely self-sufficient, and as if you are the paragon of the self-made man. Where's your humanity? Heck, failing that, where's your sense of your own human frailty? Your market-based concepts (which produce great toasters, btw, I have no problem with capitalism in the areas where it works) have left us with a failed system. It's time to start over. Health care is part of the common defense, even if it doesn't involve killing children on the other side of the planet, and the government (WHICH IS US) needs to take an active role here. Or are you opposed to the military, also?
We will all work harder and be more productive if the burden of health care is treated like a true shared risk. And our employers will become more competitive too. What part of this are you against? Do you have stock in the foreign automakers?
Oh, and the 10-15 million number has been debunked, by the way.
Why do you hope America fails, friendo?
@reality4all
"You silly socialists,all standing there with your hands out waiting for your tax-funded freebies.Where's your self-respect?Increase competition and lower costs,don't throw out the whole system."
Delusional4all - the "system" you speak of is a protection racket extorting premiums, denying care and cheating healthcare professionals - and it is getting more and more expensive, making it impossible for USA to compete in the marketplace.
I (like wealthy Germans recently announced) will be proud to pay higher taxes for a more equitable system. Patriots pay their taxes!
If you consider yourself "Christian" please reread the words of Jesus in Luke 25 - He specifically directs us to pay for the health care of our brothers.
No only is health insurance immoral, it is should be criminal!
Luke 25?
OOOooooops
Luke 10:25-37 (New International Version)
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[a]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b]"
28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
I do not cherry pick bible stories to try and justify big government socialist programs.Besides it sounds to me like Jesus was incouraging charity on a personal level,not through the government,which I promote and practice on a regular basis.I also do not cherry pick small european countries as examples of how great socialized medicine is.Germany is about as relevant as Bulgaria is to the size and scope of the system we would need in the U.S..And how is a company providing a service immoral? Thats straight out of lenin's russia.As long as they operate whithin the guidelines in an appropriate manner it's fine,let the free market drive costs down to there natural level.It's highly efficient,I see it work every day with my business.
As previously mentioned, a trigger can be festooned with so many qualifiers before it can be pulled that it becomes just another obstruction for the healthcare insurance industry to use as they continue to exploit and savage America's insureds.
What America needs is a single-payer, government healthcare program similar to Medicare. What we don't need and can no longer afford is a private healthcare system that profiteers at the expense of people's lives and people's financial stability.
For now the only step that seems politically viable is the public option. We should take the step on the road to a single-payer system that hopefully is achievable sometime soon.
Trigger ==============only a republican can come up with that sort of BS language. No trigger for me thanks, I'll take the public option!!
Take the pledge to vote against any politician who opposes the public option and climate change law and favors wealth over health. I have, and so have thousands of others.
I was educated that the "trigger" option tells US the corporate democrats have caved in.
Everyone in the beltway knows it is a dog whistle for no action.
No win for the least of US with a trigger. Period.
No health care like what we pay our congress to have.
Down go the dems glub glub
Weren't sent there to act like this.
They got the majority thanks to the voters
And this is how they repay all those follks?
Corporations are gonna repay them, not the electorate
Guess losing the party is an option for them.
Obvious, must have made more money with the the GOP running things.
Obama will be a one term prez if the trigger goes through.
Matt Do you even pay attention or does that washington insulation make sure your fantasy land is protected.
Triggers have never worked.
http://www.slate.com/id/2227795/
Triggernometry
Olympia Snowe's mechanism for compromise has a sorry history.
To "reality4all" (who apparently is in not in touch with reality at all): I am very sick of people like you accusing those who want the public option of "holding their hands out." I support the public option. My family is among the uninsured and my husband, myself and our 2 children are all working at several jobs just to make ends meet.( I am, in fact, working much harder now than I did when I had a salaried job with benefits.)
We have never taken charity and don't intend to. Until our small business went under in 2008, we paid our own premiums and those of our employees - the cost of family premiums during the 10 years we had coverage with Blue Cross rose from $435 a month to more than $900 a month just before we were cancelled and thrown out of the group plan because we missed one payment. And no, we were not excessive users of health care, nor did any of us contract a life-threatening disease. For several years we paid in much more for insurance than we ever received for healthcare. Now we are researching individual policies, but, guess what, there aren't a lot of affordable options available. My oldest child has been able to get some treatment through Medicaid and found the experience to be similar to any other doctor's office she had been to, so I also challenge those who warn of the "horrors" of a government-run system. Additionally, I'm sick of all the crap about the virtuous not wanting to pay for people's bad lifestyle choices. I've known people who lived very dangerously and never suffered medical consequences; I've known people who did everything "right" and died long, slow, costly deaths due to Alzheimer's (my mother); Parkinson's (my uncle), cancer (my aunt and 2 close friends).
It may make you feel safer or more righteous to think that the only people in need are in that situation because they are lazy, reckless or foolish. What it shows you to be is mean, selfish and ignorant.
medicaid is bankrupt,and of course your son found medicaid to be a nice experience, he didn't pay for it.The constitution doesn't guarantee us the right to health care,and even if it did I wouldn't trust the government to run that part of my life.Politicians got us into this mess so why would we give them more power? Ben Franklin said it best;"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,deserve neither liberty or safety".I trust Old Ben's opinion.
Again, reality4all, gotta call out your patent nonsense. The constitution gives congress the power and responsibility to provide for the common defense, which by many metrics should include defense against unnecessary and preventable illness. You're so afraid of a single dime of your money maybe going to help a poor person get better that you don't even recognize the direct value you would receive from such an arrangement, even if you never ever got sick yourself and lived to the ripe old age of a thousand. You look at this issue as if there's a bunch of "illegals" and lazy folks with their hands out, rather than realize how the current "market-based" system is making our great nation less competitive and less efficient.
You know what? I trust Old Ben, too. He once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Emergency room welfare ain't that. And what liberty are you giving up??? The right to watch other people die needlessly?
OHWHOAOHWHOA MAH TAXEZ R SUCH UH BRUDEN WOE IZ ME I MUST BE IN COMUNSTI RUSHA NAO!!!!
Grow up or go back to your bunker.
You can call me all the names you want but your still wrong.The "common defense " arguement is a stretch at best.A military is well whithin the realm of government responsibilities,health care is not.You have such faith in a government that has never ran a program of this size,much less done so successfully.Whats your shining example of success?How can you say that
20 million illegal immigrants using our health system for free hasn't dramatically increased costs?Competition lowers costs,increases quality.SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IS A POWER GRAB BY POLITICIANS.
I'll let you get back to your stereotyping ,insults and out of context Ben Franklin quotes.
Realitycheck:
When you say healthcare is not within the realm of government responsibilities you simply state an opinion. I disagree, and I invite you to simply google the many ways in which the stability of the country is enhanced through a healthier population not at risk of sudden health-based bankruptcy, but fine, lets leave that one at that.
You really want to argue the government has never been successful at any massive project? I think the war efforts in WWII showed the capacity of our government to work with the great people of this great country, to the betterment of all, but hey, I'll spare you the details of those and other impressive feats accomplished by generations a bit more courageous than those clowns that came to power in the 80's. Here's the reason why I'm hopeful that the government can do a (not perfect, but) better job on health care than what we're seeing today: if they get it wrong, we can fire them. We are the government's employers. If they can't get it right, we can vote in someone who can. What happens if a private insurer gets health care wrong? Nothing. You die or go bankrupt. Portability is a joke. There's no accountability whatsoever.
Moving on: Illegal Immigrants? That's another subject entirely. An important one for us to get a handle on, certainly, but one that does not need to derail the healthcare debate.
And I don't think I'm too far off on Ben Franklin, either. After all, that fine old gentleman founded the Pennsylvania Hospital, a hospital designed to help the poor and mentally ill. And he got the Penn Assembly to give him 2000 dollars to help him get it started. Yes, he also solicited donations. He had to for political reasons (the history is quite fascinating). He believed that much in helping those less fortunate, and later said that the establishment of that hospital was his proudest political maneuver.
My personal hero, Teddy Roosevelt, also believed in universal healthcare. That paragon of self-sufficiency believed in it because he well recognized it as a path to greater productivity of all workers, and greater prosperity for the nation as a whole.
Sorry about the outrage. I am easily frustrated when I see so many people fighting against their own interests. I personally have great healthcare and a good job, but I recognize that the entire nation benefits from caring for the needy among us. I'm more than happy to pay more in taxes to reap those benefits. I hope in time that you will too.
It's hard to gauge how well something like World War ll was operated.How would you measure,kills per dollar spent?It may have been massive,but I seriously doubt it was efficient on the level health care needs to be.It was also supported through massive sacrifices on the part of the american people by way of rationing ,victory gardens,war bonds,etc.It's comparing apples to oranges.A more apt example would be medicare,which is bankrupt.
As for voting out politicians;I have no personal power to effect laws that a politician has passed.I can hope that the majority see a certain issue my way come election time,but I cannot individually change a law I disagree with.The only place I am guaranteed my individual right to freedom is in a true free-market system with appropriate gov. regulations where I can spend my dollars how I like.I believe in seperation of health care and state.I'm not saying health care isn't a disaster right now,i'm just saying lets handle it in a way that preserves our freedoms.
No hard feelings al.
Why in the world is Matt Miller trying to push this lame brained idea. If they can't get the already weakened public option through, then they can go to a state opt out. There's nothing to love about the trigger, that as many have pointed out is a way to change everything so nothing changes.
Wittgenstein - Amen, you said it. The operative word is "lame". The house and senate bills are "lame", and should be put out of our misery!
I also am worried that our government doesn't have the "guts" to support the people rather than the health care businesses.
The argument that people aren't selective about costs because they aren't paying is correct if you substitute "insurance companies" for people. I have several times tried to report things like double billing, billing for services not rendered, ect to two different insurance companies. Their response, if I wanted to pay $30/sheet, they would sent me the billing and I could fight it out, otherwise they would probably "catch" it in one of their audits. Insurance companies have no incentive to lower costs because they are on a cost plus plan, over and above that, they are free to deny service at any time. The only way to control health care costs is to institute a single payer plan, the second choice would be the public option. The senators and congressmen (people?) know this and have chosen to support the insurers rather than the people. Our only recourse is to not re-elect them.
Confused,
Why? Unless you really 'wanted' to believe that bit of sophistry that the politicians keep trotting out about this being a 'democracy'. This isn't about "reform" either, it bails out the healthcare liabilities of the auto unions, and places a financial bullseye on your forehead - have a large house and money in the 401(k)/bank, you are not paying your 'fair share'! Several undocumented mexicans are depending on you for their next emergency room visit.
Grow-up, this was never about what is best for "the people".
Unless they provide caps on medical malpractice suits (won't happen) and being able to pool(buy across state lines) this bill will do little if anything to solve the high cost of health insurance.
Like auto insurance, having more options to purchase will get you a better price.
Med mal cases account for 1% of the expenses of insurance companies - don't think that's going to help much - plus, caps on med mal cases are totally unfair. Why should someone who is paralyzed because of medical negligence be limited to $250,000? That will barely get them the modifications they need on their house. And if you don't think there IS medical negligence, educate yourself - there's tons of it and people who are injured deserve to be compensated fairly -- not by a cap.
The achievement will be getting any health legislation passed.
Afterwards they can fine tune it to bring the insurers into line.
We certainly have a short memory because when this all started, the majority DID NOT WANT A Healthcare Bill. Now they are fighting over different Bills, all of which will be very bad. Our Reps have not listened and are not doing anything that the majority want. The majority still do not want the gov't involved in our health, our investments, our vehicles - OR IN ANY DECISIONS REGARDING OUR FREEDOM OF CHOICE. We all have had at least one bad experience with Healthcare providers and admittedly it is a headache negotiating with the insurance companies but when BIG GOVT takes over there will be NO RECOURSE AND NO NEGOTIATIONS. When BIG GOVT makes decisions they always make bad ones regardless of whether they are DEMS or REPUBS.
http://sickforprofit.com/
Netting $2.5 billion in profits last year wasn't enough for WellPoint, the nation's largest insurance company.
Now, WellPoint's affiliate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, is suing the state of Maine for refusing to guarantee it a profit margin in the midst of a painful recession.
nothing you don't already know.. however,
do you know anyone in Maine to forward this video to?
Government can't even get enough swine flu vaccine,and to think this is when they're trying to impress us!Are you sure you want them controling your health care?
Thank you.
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