Over the past several years, as President Barack Obama has occupied the White House, his detractors have ceaselessly labeled his policies as communist or socialist. Pundits like Glenn Beck often carefully choreographed imagery of the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle flag, or the Nazi’s swastika when referring to Mr. Obama and his policies. The notion that Democrats support socialism has become a foregone conclusion in conservative communities. As one who formally studied economics and political science at BYU, hearing these terms twisted far from their actual meaning, and observing the comparison of programs like Medicare and the Affordable Care Act to Stalinist Russia, make me cringe. For Republican strategists, the purpose in making such comparisons to the genocidal regimes of Stalin, Mao, or Hitler are obvious- striking fear in their largely uninformed constituents. This messaging strategy has worked marvelously as more and more Americans now simply refuse to even consider the merits of any policy proposal that the GOP punditry has labeled “socialist” or “communist.”
Showing posts with label Health Care Reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health Care Reform. Show all posts
February 11, 2014
Obamacare Unlocks American Innovation
America’s antiquated health care insurance system has hampered innovation and ultimately slowed economic growth for decades due to the insurance system’s perverse incentives. However, the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, has done much to reverse those disincentives. Consider the following scenario:
January 16, 2014
Is Obamacare Doomed for Failure?
When the media finds a narrative it loves, it tends to hang on, even when the facts do not compute. The poll numbers for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, have plummeted since the embarrassingly flawed roll-out of the online health insurance exchanges, and as reports spread regarding cancellations of some lower-grade insurance policies. And while some of the recent criticism of the health law is appropriate and much of the damage self-inflicted, polls also show that most Americans know very little about the health reform law. “Health Affairs,” a leading peer-reviewed journal on health policy, recently conducted a survey of top health care executives from large hospitals and health care systems across the U.S. and found surprisingly positive viewpoints about the prospects for ACA’s success. It is noteworthy that the individuals polled for this survey are health policy leaders who are well informed on how care is delivered and health care budgets are managed. Of those surveyed 65 percent believe that the U.S. healthcare system will be somewhat or significantly better than it is today by 2020. When asked about the prospects for improvements in their own organizations, 93 percent predict that the quality of care will improve. Similar attitudes were forecasted for reductions in cost and improvement in delivery of care all around.
October 7, 2013
Shutdown Antics Threaten Constitutional Order
The current shutdown of the federal government and upcoming showdown over the debt ceiling has caused many people to ask who is to blame for this gridlock. The media, in its effort to try to report both sides of the story, often end up giving balanced treatment to an unbalanced phenomenon. What we have is an extremist element within the minority political party that refuses to accept the results of the previous elections. Leading up to the shutdown, House Republicans demanded defunding of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) in exchange for passing a continuing resolution budget that would fund the rest of the federal government for a brief period. Republicans also threatened to prevent the debt ceiling from being raised that could result in a catastrophic default on our national debt if their demands are not met. In making these demands, Republicans are attempting to thwart the Constitutional order of our government while threatening financial and economic chaos.
January 17, 2013
Can Congress Make You Eat Broccoli?
Opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 frequently criticized the law’s central component -- the individual insurance mandate -- and argued that if Congress was permitted to compel everyone to purchase health insurance, it could also pass other laws that compelled Americans to buy products such as broccoli. In his ruling against ACA, Judge Roger Vinson, a conservative Reagan appointee to the Pensacola, Florida Federal District Court, argued that if ACA were upheld, “Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals… because people who eat healthier tend to… put less of a strain on the health care system.”
January 7, 2013
Violence and Mental Health
The recent mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut reinvigorated the national debate about gun control. While I believe that additional measures must be adopted to make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain firearms, it is equally important that Americans evaluate other areas in our society that may contribute to violent crime.
June 5, 2012
Affordable Care Act Focuses on Workers, Removes Perverse Incentives
President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) was not directed
at the poorest Americans, who already have Medicaid, but at the working poor.
This includes those who work full-time, but cannot afford their own health
insurance policy. In addition, low-wage jobs are far less likely to provide
health insurance benefits. Thus, typical low-wage earners are left on their own
to purchase prohibitively expensive private health care plans. In 2010, the
average cost for a private family insurance plan was $7,102.
In many locales throughout the U.S., it is mathematically impossible for a
low-wage breadwinner to pay for a $7K private insurance plan while paying for
all other essential family expenses. What’s worse, before ACA, if one became
seriously ill and required extensive treatment and thus could not work for a
long period, they would often lose their job, and with it, their health
insurance. Some conservatives counter-argue that only those who work hard
deserve health insurance and good health care. But this argument is a
non-sequitur. Health insurance is generally unaffordable for the working poor
and even parts of the working middle class, who as I pointed out in one of my
last posts, work more hours on average than the wealthy.
June 3, 2012
Universal Health Care Benefits Everyone, Eliminates Free Riders
Positive rights should not just be viewed through the lens of
entitlement. Positive rights are similar to public goods in that they provide
positive benefits to society as a whole (in economics, this phenomenon is
called a positive externality). This is especially true with health care. If
everyone has access to good health care, the chance of serious epidemic
outbreaks declines. More people are thus eligible to work. American
productivity increases because workers require fewer sick days. Healthier
people spend more money on other things aside from health care, stimulating the
economy. (For good explanations on health care as a public good, click here
and here.)
April 1, 2012
Destroying Conservative-Style Reform: GOP Turns on Insurance Mandate at Its Own Peril
In January 2009, Mitt Romney penned some advice to incoming
President Barack Obama regarding health care reform in a USA Today op-ed piece.
Romney suggested Obama look to “the lessons we learned in Massachusetts,” in
contemplating federal-level reform, noting specifically:
First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.The Massachusetts reform aimed at getting virtually all our citizens insured. In that, it worked: 98 percent of our citizens are insured, 440,000 previously uninsured are covered and almost half of those purchased insurance on their own, with no subsidy.
In a January 2008 GOP Presidential Primary debate, Romney
underscored his belief that the insurance mandate should be applied at a
national level. When the moderator noted, “Romney’s system has mandates in
Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis,”
Romney interjected, “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.”
October 18, 2011
WhichMitt.com Part 2
I recently posted two video clips of Mitt Romney contradicting himself on economic stimulus and President Obama's health care reform bill. While most politicians' views on various issues change a little over time, Romney's shift on these issues was a complete 180 degree shift and only occurred since Obama has been in office. The Republican Party has carefully crafted their message of opposition to Obama. They have taken great pains to paint his actions as that of a reckless socialist, as big government overreach. And they have specifically targeted President Obama's Recovery and Affordable Health Care Acts as the preeminent examples of such overreach. In other words, opposition to government economic stimulus and health care reform form the core of the GOP's argument against Obama's Presidency!
How can the GOP claim that it seeks to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act if the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, is the architect of a plan that is almost identical to the one Obama signed into law? This is compounded by Romney's quote in the video below where he acknowledges applying a similar program at a national level would be a good idea. How can Republicans claim that economic stimulus act destroyed our economy and aggravated the recession when the GOP frontrunner supported the notion of economic stimulus in the form of government spending in 2008 at the height of the recession? Any Republican who supports a politician like Romney but attacks Obama for these signature pieces of legislation is guilty of immense intellectual honesty.
How can the GOP claim that it seeks to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act if the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, is the architect of a plan that is almost identical to the one Obama signed into law? This is compounded by Romney's quote in the video below where he acknowledges applying a similar program at a national level would be a good idea. How can Republicans claim that economic stimulus act destroyed our economy and aggravated the recession when the GOP frontrunner supported the notion of economic stimulus in the form of government spending in 2008 at the height of the recession? Any Republican who supports a politician like Romney but attacks Obama for these signature pieces of legislation is guilty of immense intellectual honesty.
October 10, 2011
WhichMitt.com
WhichMitt.com is a hilarious website put out by the DNC. Take the quiz! Mitt Romney's constantly changing opinions make him a really easy target. This highlights his contradictions on abortion, the need for an economic stimulus plan during the current recession, health care, and more. Romney's penchant for flip-flopping makes John Kerry look like an anchor of resolve.
Here are a few of the infamous Romney quotes:
On economic stimulus:
“I think there is need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion in net worth … And government can help make that up in a very difficult time.” [CNN, Late Edition, 1/4/09]
“I have never supported the President's Recovery Act... No time, no where, no how have I supported the President's stimulus.” [Romney Town Hall, Goffstown NH, 9/28/11]
On the need for a national health care plan:
In Massachusetts, “[I] was able to put in place a plan that helped get health insurance premiums down, and gets all of our citizens insured. If we can do that nationally, we help ... the entire nation.” [CNN, 1/14/08]
“One thing I’d never do is impose a state’s plan on the entire nation, that makes no sense. I’ll repeal Obamacare.” [Romney Q&A, Andover NH, 7/4/11]
Here are a few of the infamous Romney quotes:
On economic stimulus:
“I think there is need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion in net worth … And government can help make that up in a very difficult time.” [CNN, Late Edition, 1/4/09]
“I have never supported the President's Recovery Act... No time, no where, no how have I supported the President's stimulus.” [Romney Town Hall, Goffstown NH, 9/28/11]
On the need for a national health care plan:
In Massachusetts, “[I] was able to put in place a plan that helped get health insurance premiums down, and gets all of our citizens insured. If we can do that nationally, we help ... the entire nation.” [CNN, 1/14/08]
“One thing I’d never do is impose a state’s plan on the entire nation, that makes no sense. I’ll repeal Obamacare.” [Romney Q&A, Andover NH, 7/4/11]
January 8, 2011
Are We Headed for Single Payer Health Care?
It's been interesting to listen to the debate rage over what will happen to the individual health insurance mandate in President Obama's health care reform bill as the issue moves its way up through federal courts. The mandate was recently ruled unconstitutional by one (Bush-appointed) federal judge in Virginia, but was ruled constitutional by a couple of other federal judges. It seems that most pundits agree that this issue is headed for the Supreme Court.
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post noted that Republicans may be doing some long-term damage to their cause by focusing on the individual mandate, which as my last post explained, was originally a Republican idea. To be certain, the mandate is essential to have a health-care system where everyone has coverage but private insurers dominate (Obama's plan). If the Supreme Court ultimately rules the mandate unconstitutional, the only other options for universal coverage will be the single-payer system, as found in Canada, or the fully nationalized system, as found in the United Kingdom. The mandate, as Klein states, is a very "common device" used in several other industrialized countries (including Switzerland and the Netherlands) that ensure universal coverage while relying on private insurers.
Klein makes a convincing argument when he states, "if Republicans get [the insurance mandate] ruled unconstitutional in America, they'd be wise to ask themselves what other options they have: After all, the constitutionality of Medicare is not in question, and that's really the other model we could eventually trend toward."
Another columnist argues:
By fighting the mandate needed to make private insurance solutions work, and doing nothing to ease the health cost burden on everyday Americans, you'll hasten the day when the public throws up its hands and says, "Just give us single-payer and price controls." Don't think the anti-government wave this fall won't reverse itself on health care if the most private sector-oriented health care system on earth keeps delivering the world's costliest, most inefficient care.
The current unrealistic threats by the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives to repeal the 2010 health care reform bill are good political theater, but will likely backfire. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how our federal government works, knows that Republicans do not have the numbers they need to repeal. They don't have a veto-proof majority in the House and are in the minority in the Senate. Additionally, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which typically acts as a referee in the partisan atmosphere of Congress, has indicated that a repeal of the health care bill would increase the national deficit by $230 billion.
What is ironic about the last election, which was supposedly about run-away government deficits, is that Republicans have supported positions that drastically increase the national debt. The extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich have added far more to the long-term debt of our nation than Obama's 2009 stimulus plan. The CBO estimated that the health care reform bill would actually decrease the deficit by $143 billion in its first 10 years and $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years. In an upcoming post, I'll go into some of the details of the new law, including its cost savings, but the fact of the matter is that repeal would drive us further into debt, notwithstanding doing nothing to improve our antiquated health care system including helping the tens of millions of uninsured working-class Americans and their families.
Isn't it ironic that the new House majority voted against a measure this week that would have required all Representatives to disclose whether they would accept their government-provided health insurance? As Rep Steve Israel (D-N.Y), stated, "every Republican voted to hide their own government health care, while many of them are pledging to repeal health care for everyone else." Don't we think it is relevant for constituents to know whether their representative is accepting government-sponsored health care? Nonetheless, repeal isn't going to happen. The Supreme Court is really the only mechanism by which the Obama heath care reform bill (and Romneycare) can be annulled at this point. And in the remote chance that occurs, it will probably lead us to something that is actually closer to what conservatives label as "socialized medicine."
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post noted that Republicans may be doing some long-term damage to their cause by focusing on the individual mandate, which as my last post explained, was originally a Republican idea. To be certain, the mandate is essential to have a health-care system where everyone has coverage but private insurers dominate (Obama's plan). If the Supreme Court ultimately rules the mandate unconstitutional, the only other options for universal coverage will be the single-payer system, as found in Canada, or the fully nationalized system, as found in the United Kingdom. The mandate, as Klein states, is a very "common device" used in several other industrialized countries (including Switzerland and the Netherlands) that ensure universal coverage while relying on private insurers.
Klein makes a convincing argument when he states, "if Republicans get [the insurance mandate] ruled unconstitutional in America, they'd be wise to ask themselves what other options they have: After all, the constitutionality of Medicare is not in question, and that's really the other model we could eventually trend toward."
Another columnist argues:
By fighting the mandate needed to make private insurance solutions work, and doing nothing to ease the health cost burden on everyday Americans, you'll hasten the day when the public throws up its hands and says, "Just give us single-payer and price controls." Don't think the anti-government wave this fall won't reverse itself on health care if the most private sector-oriented health care system on earth keeps delivering the world's costliest, most inefficient care.
The current unrealistic threats by the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives to repeal the 2010 health care reform bill are good political theater, but will likely backfire. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of how our federal government works, knows that Republicans do not have the numbers they need to repeal. They don't have a veto-proof majority in the House and are in the minority in the Senate. Additionally, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which typically acts as a referee in the partisan atmosphere of Congress, has indicated that a repeal of the health care bill would increase the national deficit by $230 billion.
What is ironic about the last election, which was supposedly about run-away government deficits, is that Republicans have supported positions that drastically increase the national debt. The extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich have added far more to the long-term debt of our nation than Obama's 2009 stimulus plan. The CBO estimated that the health care reform bill would actually decrease the deficit by $143 billion in its first 10 years and $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years. In an upcoming post, I'll go into some of the details of the new law, including its cost savings, but the fact of the matter is that repeal would drive us further into debt, notwithstanding doing nothing to improve our antiquated health care system including helping the tens of millions of uninsured working-class Americans and their families.
Isn't it ironic that the new House majority voted against a measure this week that would have required all Representatives to disclose whether they would accept their government-provided health insurance? As Rep Steve Israel (D-N.Y), stated, "every Republican voted to hide their own government health care, while many of them are pledging to repeal health care for everyone else." Don't we think it is relevant for constituents to know whether their representative is accepting government-sponsored health care? Nonetheless, repeal isn't going to happen. The Supreme Court is really the only mechanism by which the Obama heath care reform bill (and Romneycare) can be annulled at this point. And in the remote chance that occurs, it will probably lead us to something that is actually closer to what conservatives label as "socialized medicine."
January 6, 2011
They Were For It Before They Were Against It
During the early 1990s, when President Bill Clinton tasked First Lady Hillary Clinton to lead the effort to overhaul the nation's health care system, Republicans proposed an alternate idea to Hillary's proposal, which envisioned a larger role for government in health care than what President Obama signed into law last March. That Republican proposal was a health insurance mandate that would require all Americans to have coverage, precisely the same obligation that Republicans have vehemently lambasted in the recent health care reform bill. Polled individually, all of the major elements of Obama's health care overhaul are very popular with the notable exception of the health insurance mandate. You'll be hard-pressed to find a politician or citizen anywhere who thinks it is a bad idea that parents can keep their children covered under their insurance plan until age 26, or that insurance companies can no longer deny children with pre-existing conditions coverage, or that insurance companies cannot cancel someone's plan when they become ill.
In 2006, then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney signed into law a program that is strikingly similar to the Obama plan. Romney's plan included the same health insurance mandate that is present in the 2010 bill. At the time, Romney defended it as "a personal responsibility principle." Like President Obama's plan now, the Romney plan relied solely on private insurers to cover the uninsured. Both also included other health insurance industry regulations to prevent the exclusion or denial of care to sick people and subsidies for low-income individuals. Both are conservative, market-based ideas that don't expand government-run health insurance. Since then, Romney has changed his tune significantly.
Other prominent Republican politicians, including LDS Church members Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, have also previously co-sponsored health care legislation that included a health insurance mandate. Even Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, whose victorious election last year was trumped by Republicans as a statement against the Democrats' health care reform effort, supported the health insurance mandate in Romney's plan when he was a state-level legislator. "In Massachusetts, it helped us deal with the very real problem of uncompensated care," Brown said. So if Republicans were for it then, why are they against it now? Sen. Brown odiously tried to reconcile his support of the health insurance mandate in Massachusetts with his opposition to President Obama's plan as a states' rights issue.
Romney viciously accused President Obama of "betray[ing] his oath to the nation," after the bill was passed. Romney's attacks on the 2010 health care reform bill have been relegated to hyperbole and focus on minutia. Meanwhile, he has had to defend himself against (accurate) accusations from other Republican contenders that his health care plan hardly differs from Obama's. The bottom line is that Obamacare practically equals Romneycare.
Republican opposition to Obama's health care bill (particularly for those who previously supported the individual mandate) is nothing more than politics at its best. Romney is clearly running for the Republican nomination in 2012 and needs to run as fast and as far away from his middle-of-the-road accomplishments as governor to please the increasingly radical and detached-from-reality base of the Republican Party. We live in an age where the opposition party will do anything to prevent the President from having a "success," even if it is a success with an idea they originally devised. How else do you explain Republicans' attempts to block legislation like the new START treaty with Russia, the 9/11 first responders health care bill, the repeal of DADT? These last three measures had the broad support of the American public and the relevant experts. Yet at the end of the Lame Duck Session of Congress, you had Republicans complaining about Democrats' attempts to push through these bills, which had been on the docket (and blocked by Republicans) for months. We truly live in an era of a sad state of affairs where the public good is regularly set aside for political theater and personal and political agendas.
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones Magazine has summed up some of my feelings of the current political state of affairs quite well:
I can't remember when I've been more demoralized about American governance. I have this overwhelming feeling of barnacles building up relentlessly, untouchable because of interest group pressure on both left and right, and a complete inability and/or unwillingness to address any of it. Democrats have some things they want to do, but in addition to satisfying their own interest groups they have to settle for third or fourth best policies because Republicans have simply decided they don't care about anything except tax cuts for the rich, hating gay people, and bennies for favored industries. In the middle of a massive recession they opposed a stimulus bill. In the aftermath of a financial crisis they opposed a financial reform bill. In the face of skyrocketing healthcare costs they demagogued modest cuts in Medicare spending. They spent months negotiating a spending bill — transparently, openly, via the ordinary committee process — and then killed it just because it would annoy Harry Reid. Global warming is a hoax, gay recruits will destroy the military, and creationism is an appropriate topic for high school biology classes. Our infrastructure is crumbling and our schools are mediocre, but the creeping encrustation of government prevents anything serious from being done about either. We're in hock to Middle Eastern theocracies for our oil, and the laughable answer from the right consists entirely of nukes and a bit of marginal extra drilling around the periphery of America. An arms control treaty that could have been negotiated by Ronald Reagan himself [was] unsure of passage because too many Republican senators deem[ed] it unsafe to risk the wrath of Fox News or their tea party constituencies.
In 2006, then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney signed into law a program that is strikingly similar to the Obama plan. Romney's plan included the same health insurance mandate that is present in the 2010 bill. At the time, Romney defended it as "a personal responsibility principle." Like President Obama's plan now, the Romney plan relied solely on private insurers to cover the uninsured. Both also included other health insurance industry regulations to prevent the exclusion or denial of care to sick people and subsidies for low-income individuals. Both are conservative, market-based ideas that don't expand government-run health insurance. Since then, Romney has changed his tune significantly.
Other prominent Republican politicians, including LDS Church members Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, have also previously co-sponsored health care legislation that included a health insurance mandate. Even Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, whose victorious election last year was trumped by Republicans as a statement against the Democrats' health care reform effort, supported the health insurance mandate in Romney's plan when he was a state-level legislator. "In Massachusetts, it helped us deal with the very real problem of uncompensated care," Brown said. So if Republicans were for it then, why are they against it now? Sen. Brown odiously tried to reconcile his support of the health insurance mandate in Massachusetts with his opposition to President Obama's plan as a states' rights issue.
Romney viciously accused President Obama of "betray[ing] his oath to the nation," after the bill was passed. Romney's attacks on the 2010 health care reform bill have been relegated to hyperbole and focus on minutia. Meanwhile, he has had to defend himself against (accurate) accusations from other Republican contenders that his health care plan hardly differs from Obama's. The bottom line is that Obamacare practically equals Romneycare.
Republican opposition to Obama's health care bill (particularly for those who previously supported the individual mandate) is nothing more than politics at its best. Romney is clearly running for the Republican nomination in 2012 and needs to run as fast and as far away from his middle-of-the-road accomplishments as governor to please the increasingly radical and detached-from-reality base of the Republican Party. We live in an age where the opposition party will do anything to prevent the President from having a "success," even if it is a success with an idea they originally devised. How else do you explain Republicans' attempts to block legislation like the new START treaty with Russia, the 9/11 first responders health care bill, the repeal of DADT? These last three measures had the broad support of the American public and the relevant experts. Yet at the end of the Lame Duck Session of Congress, you had Republicans complaining about Democrats' attempts to push through these bills, which had been on the docket (and blocked by Republicans) for months. We truly live in an era of a sad state of affairs where the public good is regularly set aside for political theater and personal and political agendas.
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones Magazine has summed up some of my feelings of the current political state of affairs quite well:
I can't remember when I've been more demoralized about American governance. I have this overwhelming feeling of barnacles building up relentlessly, untouchable because of interest group pressure on both left and right, and a complete inability and/or unwillingness to address any of it. Democrats have some things they want to do, but in addition to satisfying their own interest groups they have to settle for third or fourth best policies because Republicans have simply decided they don't care about anything except tax cuts for the rich, hating gay people, and bennies for favored industries. In the middle of a massive recession they opposed a stimulus bill. In the aftermath of a financial crisis they opposed a financial reform bill. In the face of skyrocketing healthcare costs they demagogued modest cuts in Medicare spending. They spent months negotiating a spending bill — transparently, openly, via the ordinary committee process — and then killed it just because it would annoy Harry Reid. Global warming is a hoax, gay recruits will destroy the military, and creationism is an appropriate topic for high school biology classes. Our infrastructure is crumbling and our schools are mediocre, but the creeping encrustation of government prevents anything serious from being done about either. We're in hock to Middle Eastern theocracies for our oil, and the laughable answer from the right consists entirely of nukes and a bit of marginal extra drilling around the periphery of America. An arms control treaty that could have been negotiated by Ronald Reagan himself [was] unsure of passage because too many Republican senators deem[ed] it unsafe to risk the wrath of Fox News or their tea party constituencies.
January 4, 2011
Ill 9/11 First Responders and Broken U.S. Healthcare
The following interview conducted by Jon Stewart of four 9/11 first responders clearly exemplifies the health care crisis that so many working class Americans currently face or are at risk of facing. At about 3:55 in the clip, the panelists discuss the fact that they lost their health insurance coverage after they had to stop working as police officers, fire fighters, etc, due to severe illnesses they contracted as a result of working in the toxic dust at Ground Zero. After leaving the workforce, they had to fight their terminal diseases while fighting to get workman's comp to pay for their expensive medical treatments. Although the clip focuses on the 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill, the problem is the same for most Americans who lose their jobs after becoming seriously ill. Once the job is lost and the health insurance is dropped, what is severely ill person to do?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| 9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster | ||||
| ||||
January 1, 2011
Morality and the Health Care Crisis in America
I've been meaning to do a post about health care ever since the health care reform bill was debated and passed last year. I'll approach health care in two posts, first by discussing American health care (pre-reform) and the immorality of the status quo. In my next post, I'll compare the varying types of universal health care systems and examine the recent health care reform bill.
Health care reform is not just a political issue for me- it's also a moral issue. There is nothing more fundamental to one's well-being than their health. One's ability to obtain an education, to acquire and hold a job, and to sustain a family is entirely dependent on their physical and mental health. If we, as the world's most wealthy country, were happy with the pre-reform status quo, with leaving millions of lower and middle working class Americans either under-insured or uninsured, and were content with a system that bankrupts people when they become sick and lose their jobs as a result, then we've had a significant moral lapse. As I pointed out in a previous post about a "culture of life," can one truly claim to be "pro-life" when they are content to let people become sick and die for lack of treatment in the wealthiest, most powerful country the world has ever known? I've actually had some conservative friends argue as a counterpoint that anyone can be seen in an E.R. (at taxpayer expense), thus there is no need for reform. E.R. access as the sole point of access to health care is woefully inadequate. So, say someone has cancer, do you think they can go to the E.R. for chemotherapy? It doesn't take a health care professional to explain that the E.R. can handle only emergencies, not medium and long-term care for the seriously and chronically ill, not to mention cost-saving and life-enhancing preventative medicine.
Let's briefly examine health care in America, pre-reform. (It's worth noting the central features of the new health care reform bill will not be fully enacted until 2014.) In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the world's health care systems based on multiple criteria, including the overall level of population health (i.e. infant mortality rates, rates of preventable disease), health care inequalities within the population, and responsiveness of the health care system. The U.S. was ranked at number 37, just behind Costa Rica and barely ahead of Slovenia and Cuba. It was a dismal, albeit unsurprising showing for the U.S. health care system. Before examining some of the major problems with pre-reform U.S. health care, it is important to point out that the WHO rankings were not a condemnation of U.S. health care professionals, who are among the most highly skilled in the world. When opponents of health care reform claim that the U.S. has the best health care in the world, perhaps what they are referring to is American medical professionals, who are truly among the best. However, the debate about America's health care system is not about the skill set of America's health care professionals- it is primarily a question of access. And when it comes to access, our system performs exceptionally poorly.
The approximately 45 million uninsured Americans predominantly come from households with at least one full-time worker. Most poor already have access to adequate health care through Medicaid, so health care reform was not about creating a new entitlement program for the poor, as some detractors claimed, but was about ensuring access to adequate health care for America's working class. The pre-reform health care system is one in which the working poor and lower middle class disproportionally suffer from lack of access to adequate health care. Those affected by the health care reform bill are people whose employers do not provide health insurance, which is about 40% of America's work force. Factcheck.org offers a great statistical synopsis of the uninsured, setting the record straight for those who falsely assert that most uninsured are illegal aliens. According to a study cited by Factcheck.org, 79% of the uninsured are U.S. citizens. The other 21% are comprised of both legal and illegal immigrants. Twenty percent of the uninsured are children, meaning that millions of American children do not receive the routine pediatric care that is required to ensure that children have a good start a life, including vaccinations and key screenings for illnesses and birth defects. (Again- how can someone say they are "pro-life" when they don't have a problem with this situation?)
Here are a few more facts to consider:
I think it is frankly immoral for our country, the wealthiest on earth, to allow these types of situations to occur. The working-class breadwinner in this scenario, who is as hard-working as Americans who have health insurance, is forced to live in a situation where his/her family is one serious illness away from personal financial disaster. Because Medicaid will only cover those who have little or no assets (including home equity, retirement accounts, etc.) and practically no income, such a family would have to sell their house and stop working before they qualified for Medicaid. This scenario, which is all too typical in America today, has precisely the wrong incentive structure. The working poor shouldn't need to quit their jobs and sell their homes and other meager assets to qualify for Medicaid when they become ill. This situation is not only bad for those families, it is bad for our economy as a whole because it contributes bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and leads to reliance on government welfare programs.
We need to ask ourselves, why do we spend far more on health care per capita and as a percentage of GDP than the rest of the world, but have far poorer public health than other industrialized countries? Why do we accept a status quo where such a large portion of working Americans and their families cannot afford to purchase health insurance? I believe that the criteria for receiving adequate medial care should be based on the clinical need of the patient, not one's ability to pay for it.
Although the Law of Consecration was abandoned because of the early Saints' inability to adhere to it, the Lord's declarations are still relevant: "But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin," (D&C 49:20). Third Nephi chapter six, which discusses how the Nephites descended into wickedness in the run up to Christ's visit to the Americas, proclaims, "there became a great inequality in all the land," after the people became distinguished in ranks or classes by their riches and chances for learning. In contemporary America, a great inequality exists in the land with respect to the most basic of human needs- good health. And this is primarily due to a lack of access to adequate health care. Although the health care reform bill is imperfect, I'm very grateful that our lawmakers, after nearly a century of efforts to create universal health care in America, have finally acted to redress this great inequality.
Health care reform is not just a political issue for me- it's also a moral issue. There is nothing more fundamental to one's well-being than their health. One's ability to obtain an education, to acquire and hold a job, and to sustain a family is entirely dependent on their physical and mental health. If we, as the world's most wealthy country, were happy with the pre-reform status quo, with leaving millions of lower and middle working class Americans either under-insured or uninsured, and were content with a system that bankrupts people when they become sick and lose their jobs as a result, then we've had a significant moral lapse. As I pointed out in a previous post about a "culture of life," can one truly claim to be "pro-life" when they are content to let people become sick and die for lack of treatment in the wealthiest, most powerful country the world has ever known? I've actually had some conservative friends argue as a counterpoint that anyone can be seen in an E.R. (at taxpayer expense), thus there is no need for reform. E.R. access as the sole point of access to health care is woefully inadequate. So, say someone has cancer, do you think they can go to the E.R. for chemotherapy? It doesn't take a health care professional to explain that the E.R. can handle only emergencies, not medium and long-term care for the seriously and chronically ill, not to mention cost-saving and life-enhancing preventative medicine.
Let's briefly examine health care in America, pre-reform. (It's worth noting the central features of the new health care reform bill will not be fully enacted until 2014.) In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked the world's health care systems based on multiple criteria, including the overall level of population health (i.e. infant mortality rates, rates of preventable disease), health care inequalities within the population, and responsiveness of the health care system. The U.S. was ranked at number 37, just behind Costa Rica and barely ahead of Slovenia and Cuba. It was a dismal, albeit unsurprising showing for the U.S. health care system. Before examining some of the major problems with pre-reform U.S. health care, it is important to point out that the WHO rankings were not a condemnation of U.S. health care professionals, who are among the most highly skilled in the world. When opponents of health care reform claim that the U.S. has the best health care in the world, perhaps what they are referring to is American medical professionals, who are truly among the best. However, the debate about America's health care system is not about the skill set of America's health care professionals- it is primarily a question of access. And when it comes to access, our system performs exceptionally poorly.
The approximately 45 million uninsured Americans predominantly come from households with at least one full-time worker. Most poor already have access to adequate health care through Medicaid, so health care reform was not about creating a new entitlement program for the poor, as some detractors claimed, but was about ensuring access to adequate health care for America's working class. The pre-reform health care system is one in which the working poor and lower middle class disproportionally suffer from lack of access to adequate health care. Those affected by the health care reform bill are people whose employers do not provide health insurance, which is about 40% of America's work force. Factcheck.org offers a great statistical synopsis of the uninsured, setting the record straight for those who falsely assert that most uninsured are illegal aliens. According to a study cited by Factcheck.org, 79% of the uninsured are U.S. citizens. The other 21% are comprised of both legal and illegal immigrants. Twenty percent of the uninsured are children, meaning that millions of American children do not receive the routine pediatric care that is required to ensure that children have a good start a life, including vaccinations and key screenings for illnesses and birth defects. (Again- how can someone say they are "pro-life" when they don't have a problem with this situation?)
Here are a few more facts to consider:
- Prior to the recent recession, the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. was health care expenses. This is not an efficient way for a modern economy and society to operate; it contributed to the real estate crisis when many people had to sell their homes to pay off major medical bills because they were either uninsured or under-insured.
- The U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not have universal health care access for its citizens.
- The U.S. spends far more money on health care as a percentage of GDP (about 17%) than any other country, yet the overall level of our public health as measured by infant mortality, life expectancy, levels of preventable disease, etc, is significantly less than that of most other industrialized countries. In other words, we get much less bang for our health care bucks than do other modern countries.
- The often criticized National Health Service of the United Kingdom costs British taxpayers only about 7% of GDP compared to the 17% of GDP health care cost burden in the U.S.
- For decades, many health insurance companies in the U.S. have had morally reprehensible practices such as canceling insurance policies of individuals after they became seriously ill, denying coverage to people (including children) with pre-existing conditions, and placing annual and lifetime caps on benefits- an assault to the seriously and chronically ill. There are many documented cases of people actually dying after their insurance canceled their coverage and they had to stop receiving treatment because they couldn't afford to pay the bills (especially since most serious illnesses prevent people from being able to work).
I think it is frankly immoral for our country, the wealthiest on earth, to allow these types of situations to occur. The working-class breadwinner in this scenario, who is as hard-working as Americans who have health insurance, is forced to live in a situation where his/her family is one serious illness away from personal financial disaster. Because Medicaid will only cover those who have little or no assets (including home equity, retirement accounts, etc.) and practically no income, such a family would have to sell their house and stop working before they qualified for Medicaid. This scenario, which is all too typical in America today, has precisely the wrong incentive structure. The working poor shouldn't need to quit their jobs and sell their homes and other meager assets to qualify for Medicaid when they become ill. This situation is not only bad for those families, it is bad for our economy as a whole because it contributes bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and leads to reliance on government welfare programs.
We need to ask ourselves, why do we spend far more on health care per capita and as a percentage of GDP than the rest of the world, but have far poorer public health than other industrialized countries? Why do we accept a status quo where such a large portion of working Americans and their families cannot afford to purchase health insurance? I believe that the criteria for receiving adequate medial care should be based on the clinical need of the patient, not one's ability to pay for it.
Although the Law of Consecration was abandoned because of the early Saints' inability to adhere to it, the Lord's declarations are still relevant: "But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin," (D&C 49:20). Third Nephi chapter six, which discusses how the Nephites descended into wickedness in the run up to Christ's visit to the Americas, proclaims, "there became a great inequality in all the land," after the people became distinguished in ranks or classes by their riches and chances for learning. In contemporary America, a great inequality exists in the land with respect to the most basic of human needs- good health. And this is primarily due to a lack of access to adequate health care. Although the health care reform bill is imperfect, I'm very grateful that our lawmakers, after nearly a century of efforts to create universal health care in America, have finally acted to redress this great inequality.
September 24, 2010
The September 23rd Health Care Milestone
September 23rd marked six months since President Barack Obama signed the new health care reform bill into law. The new law contains a plethora of measures that aim to reform and improve the overall quality and availability of health care in America. However, most of the law's measures did not go into effect immediately upon the bill's passage. The first major milestone occurred yesterday, on September 23rd, when several key measures were implemented, some affecting almost everyone, others only initially affecting those with new and heavily revised insurance plans (with similar changes affecting all plans a little further in the future). Here are some of the ones I believe are most important:
* The lifetime limit or cap on what an insurance company will pay to cover an individual's medical costs is being eliminated for plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd. So if you get very sick and require extensive, lengthy, and costly treatment, you no longer have to worry about your insurance "capping out" when you need it the most.
* Free preventative care for those with plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd.
* Annual limits can no longer be lower than $750,000 for plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd. By 2014 annual limits will be entirely eliminated.
* Insurers can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
* Parents can keep their adult children on their health plans until age 26.
* Insurers can no longer cancel policies retroactively when a person becomes ill.
An Associated Press article has more details about these and other changes. Perhaps most significantly to some, health insurance benefit consulting companies have estimated that the cost impact of the new benefits from the health care law on insurance premiums will be relatively small. Some of the worst practices of health insurance companies, that have ruined the lives of many Americans, are coming to an end with these changes.
* The lifetime limit or cap on what an insurance company will pay to cover an individual's medical costs is being eliminated for plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd. So if you get very sick and require extensive, lengthy, and costly treatment, you no longer have to worry about your insurance "capping out" when you need it the most.
* Free preventative care for those with plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd.
* Annual limits can no longer be lower than $750,000 for plans issued or renewed on or after September 23rd. By 2014 annual limits will be entirely eliminated.
* Insurers can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
* Parents can keep their adult children on their health plans until age 26.
* Insurers can no longer cancel policies retroactively when a person becomes ill.
An Associated Press article has more details about these and other changes. Perhaps most significantly to some, health insurance benefit consulting companies have estimated that the cost impact of the new benefits from the health care law on insurance premiums will be relatively small. Some of the worst practices of health insurance companies, that have ruined the lives of many Americans, are coming to an end with these changes.
March 28, 2010
"The Rage is Not About Health Care"
Frank Rich stated what I was trying to point out in my previous post, "Right-Wing Terrorism," in a much more eloquent and straightforward fashion than I did. (That's probably why he's a NYT columnist and I'm not.) Here are some of the best parts:
In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot... If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory.
...As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.
In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot... If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory.
...As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.
March 22, 2010
The Conservatives' Waterloo
David Frum, President George W. Bush's former speechwriter and a conservative political pundit posted the following on his website yesterday. I highly recommend the entire article, but here are some key points:
Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s... A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves. At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994...
But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994...
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat... There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s... A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves. At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994...
But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994...
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat... There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
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