Category: Healthcare

The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!!!!*

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Democrat Kathy Hochul, has won the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional district, largely because people do not want the Republicans to f%$# with Medicare.

Note here that she also won with some solid numbers, she got 48% of the vote, as versus Republican Jane Corwin’s 42% of the vote, and teabagger nutjob Jack Davis’s 8%.

You have to figure that even if Davis were not in the race, she would have won.

Note that this is not only one of the most firmly republican districts in New York, but one of the more heavily ‘Phant districts in the country, and it wasn’t even close.

*If you are American, and have not heard of the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, shame on you. If you are not American, click the link.

Medical Myths Exploded In a Picture

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They’ve been blaming you and laughing all the way to the bank

You know what they all say, we drink too much (not), smoke too much (not, really really not, have you seen how much Frenchmen smoke), obesity (not), malpractice (one of the great lies in history).

What does it come down too?

  • We pay more for the same services.
  • Our overhead costs dwarf those of socialized medicine.
  • Doctors get paid a lot more here.

At its core, what we are seeing is a situation where the perfect “immaculate market” that the free market mousketeers seem so enamored of simply does not work.

It doesn’t work because healthcare is not an area where you have the option of just not buying the service, and frequently, shopping is not an option.

Besides, even if it were an option to shop for the best deal, the pricing schemes are deliberately obfuscatory, because opacity suits the players in this little pseudo-market dance.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for the graphic.

Links to part 1 and part 2 of the series.

Wrapping NHS Up In a Bow, and Giving It to Non-Profits

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Here’s a big surprise, the Tories intend to dismantle the National Health Service in the UK, and give it to for profit entities:

A senior adviser to David Cameron says the NHS could be improved by charging patients and will be transformed into a “state insurance provider, not a state deliverer” of care.

Mark Britnell, who was appointed to a “kitchen cabinet” advising the prime minister on reforming the NHS, told a conference of executives from the private sector that future reforms would show “no mercy” to the NHS and offer a “big opportunity” to the for-profit sector.

The revelations come on the eve of an important speech by the prime minister on the future of the NHS, during which he is expected to try to allay widespread fears that the reforms proposed in health secretary Andrew Lansley’s health and social care bill would lead to privatisation.

So not a shocker.

Conservatives realize that when government works, it becomes popular, and they don’t, so they spend most of their times trying to throw a monkey wrench (spanner in UK-speak) into the works.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?!?

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Newt Gingrich is slamming Paul Ryan’s plan to eliminate Medicare:

Presidential contender Newt Gingrich took a potshot Sunday at Republican House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare, becoming the most prominent Republican to distance himself from the plan.

Ryan’s proposal, which was passed by the GOP-controlled House in April, would have people 54 and younger choose from a list of coverage options and have Medicare make “premium-support payments” to the plan they chose.

“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” Gingrich scoffed in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

House Republicans, including Speaker John A. Boehner, have stood behind Ryan’s plan, which was the subject of fierce debate at town-hall meetings nationwide. Other Republican presidential contenders have praised Ryan’s political courage without going so far as to endorse the budget blueprint.

Let’s be clear here: We know just what Newt is, an opportunist, so his condemnation is not a mark of any real problem with the idea of selling seniors to insurance companies to be ground up into Soylent Green, after all, he pretty much proposed that in the 1990s.

Instead, it is an acknowledgment by Gingrich that the proposal is a complete political loser, and so he thinks that by joining its condemnation, he will be able derive political advantage.

Do You Want Some Cheese With That Whine?

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So, after voting to abolish Medicare, the Republican freshmen have sent a letter to Obama demanding that the Democrats not beat them up over this:

Politicians usually don’t begin press conferences with an admission of guilt.

But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday, when freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) called on the president to condemn the scare tactics Democrats have used against Republicans on Medicare — the same type of attacks Republicans used against Democrats throughout the 2010 campaign that helped put many of the GOP freshmen in office.

“We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of playing partisan politics with key issues facing our country, but now is the time to hit the reset button,” Kinzinger said, as if to pre-empt accusations of hypocrisy coming from Democrats. “As a freshman class, we have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and … not continue the petty politics we’ve seen in the past.”

Last year, as a candidate, Kinzinger sang a different tune: He criticized the Democratic health care overhaul, saying it would amount to $500 billion in cuts over 10 years, removing 4 million patients from Medicare and putting 15 million on Medicaid, according to local news reports.

I’m sorry, but if these guys are not strong enough to defend themselves from a 72 year old constituent with blue hair, how can they be expected to protect us from bin Laden Saddam Hussein Fidel Castro anyone more threatening than the Easter Bunny?

You know the attacks against the rat f%$#s are different from the death panels, because they are true, which has counted for something in the United States since the days of John Peter Zenger.

Why do House Republicans hate America?

Can Someone Please Primary Steny Hoyer

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The moron is talking about means testing Medicare:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) offered cautious support Tuesday for the idea of adopting further means-testing of Medicare and Social Security to help shore up the finances of both programs. But the devil, he said, will be in the details.

“I don’t want to get into means testing until we look at specific proposals,” Hoyer said at his weekly Capitol briefing in response to a question from TPM. “Generally speaking, we do, as you know, have certain means testing in both Medicare and SS at this point in time. … I think clearly we’re going to have to make both of those programs sustainable over the long run, and I think to some degree it would be clearly appropriate to look at — without endorsing any specific proposal — the insuring that the least well off are protected and to do that look at the best off … in terms of what level of support they get.”

First, if you cut off the top ½%, you don’t save any money, and if you cut off any more than that, and you destroy the program, which makes it bad policy.

Then you have to follow that up with the fact that the Republicans are killing themselves with this, but good old Steny feels the need to give them an opportunity to point at the Dems and say, “See, they are trying to cut your Medicare!”

Is he trying to lose?

Actually, considering him, he might be.  I think that he figures that he becomes the Dem leader in the House if Pelosi does not get back the House in 2012, so he wins by the country losing.

Vermont Passes Conference Committee Version of Single Payer

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So it now goes to the governor, who has promised to sign the bill.

My take on this is very straightforward: It won’t get the waivers needed to be implemented, because employers in the region would leave skid marks to open up offices in Vermont if it did, which would have a cascading “race to the top” which would render much of the US health insurance irrelevant, and Barack Obama aggressively lobbied to prevent such an option for the states for his healthcare bill.

I’m not sure whether it is philosophy (Obama honestly believes that the solution has to be private because of his philosophy), or if it is expediency (Obama needs to raise a billion dollars for the 2012 campaign, and the FIRE sector is the source of much of that money), but the effect is the same:  He will not allow this plan to proceed to fruition.

Who Lent Harry Reid a Pair of Testicles?

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Because he has just announced that he will be forcing a vote on the Senate floor on the Paul Ryan budget, which dismantles Medicare:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it’s definite: He will scheduled a vote on House Republicans’ fiscal 2012 budget plan, which passed the House on a party-line vote earlier this month and includes the proposal to make Medicare a voucher-style health-care program for seniors.

The move could create an awkward situation for some Senate Republicans, who would anger conservative constituents by voting no, but could alienate independents by voting yes. Sen. Susan Collins, a centrist Republican from Maine, said last week she’ll oppose the budget.

Senate Republicans “seem to be in love with the [Rep. Paul] Ryan budget, they’re going to get an opportunity to vote on the Ryan budget,” Mr. Reid said. Asked if he thought the Senate would defeat the House GOP budgetary plan, Mr. Reid said “I hope so.”

An “awkward situation”, yes, I guess it is.

BTW, the Senate rules does not allow a filibuster of the budget.

Vermont Senate Passes Single Payer Healthcare

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The Vermont state Senate has now passed the single payer healthcare bill, and, assuming no problems in conference committee, will shortly head to the governor’s desk, where he has promised to sign it.

Of course, the whole thing is dependent on getting a waiver from HHS, and I’m dubious of that bit, because Obama has shown himself to be the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) sector’s bitch, and you can be sure that the insurance companies will be trying to do whatever they can to drive a stake through the bill’s heart.

So Obama’s Speech Was This Afternoon

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I’ve read it, and it was much better than I expected.

It is not what I would want in a perfect world, it’s pretty much a 3rd way center right prescription, though it was rather stronger that I expected.

He did not sell out Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and he did not hippie punch, and he framed the Republican plan as a transfer from poor to rich.

The fact that he actually presented a moral argument here stuns me.

My only problem here, and I agree with Paul Krugman:

I should probably say, I could live with this as an end result. If this becomes the left pole, and the center is halfway between this and Ryan, then no — better to pursue the zero option of just doing nothing and letting the Bush tax cuts as a whole expire.

This is clearly a first shot in the 2012 campaign, though I hope that is more than that.

His statements about needing reforms in the social safety net toward the end of the speech worry me though.

I’ll take what I can from him.

A Party Without a Death Wish Would Beat Them to Death With Their Own Pancreas

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But all we have is the Democratic Party, so now that the Republican Party has formally proposed abolishing Medicare and Replacing it with vouchers, so I expect that they, and Barack Obama in particular, will spend the next few months negotiating with themselves before capitulating.

E.J. Dionne asks a question:

And you wonder: Will President Obama welcome the responsibility of engaging the country in this big argument, or will he shrink from it? Will his political advisers remain robotically obsessed with poll results about the 2012 election, or will they embrace Obama’s historic obligation — and opportunity — to win the most important struggle over the role of government since the New Deal?

They will shrink from their responsibility, even though it fighting for Medicare is an unalloyed political winner for them.

This has been another answer of simple answers to simple questions.

If You Think that Vermont Will Get a Waiver, You Are Smoking Some Good Shit

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The state of Vermont is seeking a waiver to allow it to set up a single payer healthcare system:

On February 8, newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin unveiled his plan for a publicly funded single-payer healthcare system, which was introduced into the state’s legislature. If enacted, which appears likely, it will be the first system of its kind in the United States and Vermont would become the first state to abolish most forms of private health insurance.

………

The state cannot “get this done,” however, unless it receives a waiver from the federal government to bypass the federal reform legislation. Shumlin thinks that won’t be a problem; Vermont’s entire congressional delegation—Sens. Bernie Sanders (I) and Patrick Leahy (D) and Rep. Peter Welch (D)—support the single-payer effort and introduced a measure to allow states to receive waivers from federal reform requirements as soon as 2014, as long as they cover as many uninsured people as federal law would. (They currently have to wait until 2017.) On February 28, President Barack Obama told state governors he would support the earlier date.

If anyone out there thinks that Barack Obama look at the nsurance industry, and take off the knee pads and put away his ChapStick in order to allow Vermont to render health insurers irrelevant, you are delusional.

Heck of a Job Boehner

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As part of their continuing resolution, the GOP have voted to defund planned parenthood, the healthcare law, gutting the social security administration, and forbidding the EPA from regulating mercury pollution.

This was all pretty standard. Obama has threatened a veto, and Reid has said that it will never see the light of day, so they can get in their votes, and not see much blowback.

What surprises me though is that they lost on a vote to defund the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB):

Sixty House Republicans joined with every Democrat to beat back an anti-union amendment on Thursday that would have defunded the National Labor Relations Board, a New Deal-era independent agency that arbitrates labor disputes. The sixty defections come as the Midwest GOP governors in Wisconsin and Ohio are launching direct assaults on public employee unions.

Nine high-ranking Republican members of the Education and the Workforce Committee broke with their party to support the agency, including the chairman, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.). GOP hostility toward organized labor is not a new phenomenon, but the hostility has intensified since Republicans took control of the House; the party went so far as to rename what had been called the Education and Labor Committee, replacing “labor” with “the workforce.”

The fact that, “piling up losses in a chamber where the majority party typically rules with an iron fist,” is telling.

The Republican Party has been anti-union since Abraham Lincoln.  Support for organized labor one of the things that (used to) distinguish between conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans.

Still the fact that Boehner, and  Cantor could not successfully whip the vote on this is telling.

Boehner is clearly the weakest house speaker in decades, possibly since Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neil 1981-3.

My guess is that the nut job in Wisconsin is spooking some of the Republicans in Wisconsin, and neighboring, states.

Wisconsin is beginning to look a lot like MacArthur’s assault on the bonus army, and some people on the ‘Phant side realize that this will not end well.

Reagan Appointed Judge Rules Entire Healthcare Law Unconstitutional

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It was such a good idea for some moron to leave out a severability clause from the bill, huh?

A second federal judge ruled on Monday that it was unconstitutional for Congress to enact a health care law that required Americans to obtain commercial insurance, evening the score at 2 to 2 in the lower courts as conflicting opinions begin their path to the Supreme Court.

But unlike a Virginia judge in December, Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., concluded that the insurance requirement was so “inextricably bound” to other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that its unconstitutionality required the invalidation of the entire law.

“The act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker,” Judge Vinson wrote.

The judge declined to immediately enjoin, or suspend, the law pending appeals, a process that could last two years. But he wrote that the federal government should adhere to his declaratory judgment as the functional equivalent of an injunction. That left confusion about how the ruling might be interpreted in the 26 states that are parties to the legal challenge.

And here is the money quote, which has since been removed from the online article:

The Florida plaintiffs ensured they would draw a Republican-appointed judge by filing the lawsuit in Pensacola.

I believe that the operative phrase here is, “Forum shopping for an activist judge.”

It’s all going to be down to Anthony Kennedy, because the other 4 reactionaries on the court are hyper-politicized assholes who have already made their mind based on partisan considerations.

Federal Judge Rules Insurance Mandate Unconstitutional

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Note however, that the judge, Henry E. Hudson, is a well known serious wingnut, and even he did not have the stones to issue an injunction, nor did he rule the rest of the law unconstitutional, and two other Federal District Court judges dismissed the cases pretty much before the ink was dry on those petitions.

Of course, this does mean that it is likely to make it to the Supreme Court, where Justice Roberts is busy trying to recreate the bogus “Freedom of Contract“. (See also Schechter).

In any case, the Obama administration’s response is predictable:

The administration acknowledges that if the insurance requirement falls before taking effect in 2014, related changes would necessarily collapse with it, most notably provisions that would prevent insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or charging them discriminatory rates.

Once again, the Obama administration is capitulating before the fight has even started.

Let’s assume that the Supreme Court rules the mandate unconstitutional.  What happens then is that, if nothing is done, the insurance industry is in risk of collapse in the very short term (less than 18 months).

It’s time to ask for single payer, or a public option, not to wring your hands and repeal the bill.

With the threat of a veto, and the ensuing collapse of health insurers across the US, you can get some decent non-insurance company friendly provisions, like the public option and a repeal of ERISA preemption.

But of course, in Obama’s world, the predators that are the health insurance industry are “partners” to be protected, not a profit driven source of pain and suffering, so he will go to the mat for them.

I Am So Glad That I Do Not Live 15 Miles Further East

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Because if I did, the biggest wanker in Congress would be my Congresscritter:

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Andy Harris campaigned non-stop against government run healthcare, but that’s only for people who aren’t him, I guess.

More of This, Please…

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The state of Michigan and the Department of Justice have filed an anti-trust suit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan:

The Justice Department filed an antitrust suit Monday against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, accusing the giant health insurer of using its market clout to stifle competition and cause consumers covered by other health plans to pay more for hospital care.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit and joined by the state of Michigan, said Blue Cross contracts with at least 70 of the acute care hospitals in the state force them to raise prices and prevent other insurers from competing with them.

Antitrust officials say the provisions likely resulted in Michigan consumers paying higher prices.

Here is hoping that they get nailed to the wall.