| Author | Message | ||
     Reindog |
Krauthammer's analysis and viewpoint on the Congressional Bills is the best that I have seen. Please take the time to read his column. ---------------- The Kraut gets it right Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right. The bill is irredeemable. By Charles Krauthammer The United States has the best health care in the world — but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees, and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions. Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes — such as the 118 new boards, commissions, and programs — is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony. The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome: You’ll find mandates with financial penalties — the amounts picked out of a hat. You’ll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently, insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third — numbers picked out of a hat. You’ll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies — percentages picked out of a hat — that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle-class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences. The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool. Then do health care the right way — one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness, and inefficiency. First, tort reform. This is money — the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade — wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards. The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures, and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits — resources wasted on patients who don’t need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do. In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.” Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don’t want “to take on the trial lawyers.” What he didn’t say — he didn’t need to — is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection. Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines. Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter. And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option — a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin — to introduce “competition.” It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges. But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need — the excuse — for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine. Third, tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues — the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget. This reform is the most difficult to enact, for two reasons. The unions oppose it. And the Obama campaign savaged the idea when John McCain proposed it during last year’s election. Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method — a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency. The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one — tort reform, interstate purchasing. and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 — and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury. ------------------ As expected, Obama doesn't like an articulate opponent such as Krauthammer. The Empire Strikes Back | ||
| Teddagreek |
I often wonder if people actually ride motorcycles here...  | ||
| Crusty |
They're out to get you! Be afraid! Be very afraid! Become Paranoid! | ||
| Reindog |
Notice how two Lefties immediately try to squelch the channel if we don't bow down to the Messiah. Typical. Did you even READ the column? It is an excellent analysis. (Message edited by reindog on November 28, 2009) | ||
| Crusty |
I disagree with you. (Message edited by Crusty on November 28, 2009) | ||
| Reindog |
Crusty, Your two emotional outbursts seems to have hit a nerve. Newsflash, this isn't the first political thread on Badweb nor will it be the last. Simply do not read this so called "political drivel" as I suspect you had no expectation of a discussion about ZTL braking when you opened up this thread. Your attempt to squelch dissent is disingenuous and reveals a lot about who you are. Our Republic is in great danger with the current Congress and a President willing to sign their Socialist agenda into law. Krauthammer gets it right. Scrap the current Health Care Bills and start over. I am strongly in favor of health care reform. | ||
| Jimduncan69 |
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| Roadcouch98 |
Reindog, the "KOOLAID" makes for an Evil Master. The "SHEEPLE" shall not want, as Big Brother will provide. | ||
| 4cammer |
Teddagreek....you best hope if this so-called health care reform passes our sport is not deemed "irresponsible". | ||
| Alchemy |
The problem with Krauthammer is that this is too late. For months this has been brewing and now that it is about to be passed he decides to pipe up. Too late. In his first sentence he announces that the US has the most expensive and inefficient healthcare system in the world. Where has he been! This has been true for years and years. One of his suggestions is tort reform. Big whup! You can do all the tort reform you want and it will not extend health care to the millions denied or undercovered now. I mean tort reform is a nice idea but it has no place in finding a way to extend coverage to the broader population. Tort reform mostly helps the big pharma companies, big money and lobbying interests. Decent idea but a joke regarding efforts to extend healthcare. Tort reform will come but it is laughable issue at this point. Think about what tort reform means. Today, you get busted up bad by a cager so you sue for millions. You better sue because you will never get coverage on your injuries going forward because they are pre-existing conditions. You sue to get the money to pay out of pocket for your care for many decades you will (hopefully) live while your injuries are excluded from your personal insurance. If there was some sort of insurance coverage available that would cover pre-existing conditions then your need to sue is minimal and your rationale for asking for millions tends to go away. The way Krauthammer want to do it would leave you with limited legal recourse and no mandated coverage. His ideas don't demonstrate much deep thinking in my book. The guy could have been a beneficial force a get the plan right had he started many months ago. Reforming the healthcare system is an enormous undertaking and if they can keep the bill to under 3k pages I will be surprised. It may turn out to be a mess but doing something is better than just complaining about lawyers and unions. Just my 2 cents, opinions may vary. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
You want to know what government health care will be ?... Look no further than last weeks announcements from "medical review commissions" concerning mammograms and cervical pap screening. It is a dunderheaded piece of legislation that ten years from now we will wonder how we ever got ourselves so entrenched in a behemouth. You are going to tell insurance companies that they cant assign policy costs and risk on age, race, gender, weight, health, previous conditions, location, marriage status, credit score (dont think they dont) driving record, smoking record, employment longevity, family status, and ability to pay? Then you know nothing of insurance. Let the government step in and say everyone is the same risk, with the same premium, all easily deducted from your pay, unless you are union, govt emp, or illegal.... this has FAIL written all over it. It is not a policy I would ever underwrite. You are in for a landslide of lawsuits for care access, loss of contract, and doctors leaving the health care practice. Washington state has already had one insurer pull the plug with in the last week. You will see more for profit insurance companies start to abandon the market. | ||
| Gregtonn |
"You are in for a landslide of lawsuits for care access, loss of contract, and doctors leaving the health care practice." Unfortunately you won't be able to sue the government. G | ||
| Gregtonn |
"They're out to get you! Be afraid! Be very afraid! Become Paranoid!" Crusty, I refer you to this very apt quote: "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they ain't out to get you."_Frank Wyatt G | ||
| Cityxslicker |
You should let the law firm that I just signed a retainer with know that  I have the distinct feeling they would not be paying me if they thought I would not be of service to them. | ||
| Gregtonn |
[38] CONCLUSION [39] The Seventh Amendment's guarantee of trial by jury has consistently been interpreted by the federal courts in such a manner as to be inapplicable both in state court actions and in claims against the federal government. Because the Attorney General, exercising authority granted by Congress, has seen fit to accord the defendants in this case the status of federal employees, thus allowing for the substitution of the United States as the sole defendant in this action originating in state court, the plaintiffs have no constitutional recourse for the bench-trial mandate of the applicable statutes. Furthermore, those portions of 42 U.S.C. § 233 applicable to these plaintiffs do not impose upon the healthcare providers a duty to provide advance notice to patients about possible statutory limitations in malpractice actions. For these reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court substituting the United States as the sole defendant and dismissing the plaintiffs' complaint without prejudice. http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/immunity/wilson.h tm G | ||
| Reindog |
Alchemy, great post as you leave things to think about. Krauthammer is not a politician so he can't get stuff done but he is a voice to listen to and that is what his job is. There is nothing in his column that we haven't already heard but he is one of the first to state what many of us feel is obvious. That is his job. I do not claim to be an expert on the effect of tort reform on the medical field but I suspect you are minimizing the fear and loathing that doctors, specialists, hospitals, drug and medical equipment manufacturers have in being sued in this litigious society. The pendulum is hanging out three counties from "fair", whatever that means. ALL doctors pay outrageous medical malpractice premiums partially due to the flood of ambulance chasers such as John Edwards. Again the pendulum is too far and it costs beaucoup $. Before you accuse me of kicking puppies and swiping lollipops from infants, I believe in legal recourse when malpractice occurs. Doctors really DO order too many tests partially to cover their butts. Last year, I had $6K of blood tests which produced no results and I suspect I would have been better kicking back and stay tuned with my body. The mathematics of actuarial science are pretty advanced and a power hungry Congress might be able to ignore it and legislate away probabilities but it doesn't change the probable truth by which insurance companies live and die. The government stepping in on this issue is a like a drunken car careening towards a police checkpoint. It ain't gonna be pretty. Anyhow, gotta go now and eat turkey. Thanks for your reasoned rebuttal. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
I'll believe it when I see it, as far as suing the government. Sure, people sue the Social Security Administration, for example, because they are denied benefits but I don't think there are pots of gold to be had like there is suing private industry. And the idea of insuring illegal aliens baffles me. Surely, the illegals won't be paying for their insurance because they are ILLEGAL. So, the government would end up paying. Excuse me, but isn't the government already paying for them??? I know..I know...we are supposed to save money because they wont be going to the ER. Yea, but they will end up going to their FREE doctor for every sniffle which, in the long run, I bet ends up being costlier. | ||
| Reindog |
Teddagreek, Can you shrink your most cool photo a bit so the screen doesn't go batstuff when one views this thread? Thanks a bunch and I'll catch you on the slopes. | ||
| M2me |
First off, tort reform does not equal health care reform. They are two separate issues. And 36 states already have limits on medical malpractice lawsuits. Buying health care insurance across state lines has a very important problem that Krauthammer ignores: health care insurance companies are exempt from federal anti-trust laws. That would have to be addressed before health care insurance could be bought across state lines. The reason is pretty simple. Two or three big insurance companies could setup store front offices in one state and they would just have to lobby that one state's legislature to get what they want. Then they could easily drive everybody else out of business. Americans across the country would end up having only a couple of choices and those insurance companies could wring us dry and there would be nothing we could do about it. Taxing health insurance benefits is not a bad idea but Krauthammer overplays it a bit. Sure, Obama was opposed to it during the campaign but he has since stated that the option is on the table. Plus, in the current legislation "Cadillac plans" are taxed. Also, taxing employer based insurance would kill it and then everybody would be tossed into the market on their own. Our current system is largely based on employer provided insurance and we would have to come up with an alternative to that and we've have to come up with it fast. The current health care reform is a baby step toward reform. It reforms, but mostly retains our current system. Very little is going to change for most Americans who are getting their health care insurance through their employer. This is just the first step toward reform. It's long past time to take that first step. Other countries are already way ahead of us on this. | ||
| Gregtonn |
"The current health care reform is a baby step toward reform....This is just the first step toward reform." Good lord! If "baby steps" cost a TRILLION dollars each, (which we don't have) what will your idea of reform cost? Get a grip man! G | ||
| Reindog |
"the current health care reform is a baby step toward reform" is EXACTLY what a Socialist or a Communist would argue. It doesn't take a PhD to see that the current health care reform will eventually destroy ALL private insurance and be subsumed by the Government. One has recourse with private insurance. The government will have taken direct control of 1/7 of our economy and you can NOT sue the government. The government has repeatedly demonstrated that good intentions falter when there is no accountability nor the profit motive. YOU HAVE ZERO RECOURSE WHEN THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLS YOU. (Message edited by reindog on November 29, 2009) | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
I don't give a flying **** what other countries are doing. I have Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, which the last time I checked is a non-profit insurance company. There are others. I believe Kaiser is, too. So, the question I have is where are the supposed cost savings going to come from if the government is running the system? | ||
| Crusty |
I have Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, which the last time I checked is a non-profit insurance company. If you really believe that, I'll give you one hell of a deal on a bridge in New York. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Crusty, dont you have a motorcycle to go ride? | ||
| Aesquire |
Now, Now, I have Blue cross. They have no profits to report to the govt. All the extra money goes to managerial bonus's & bribes for congress. That means there is no profit...hence, nonprofit. Didn't kaiser just get a sweetheart deal in the newest bill? Then there are the whores in Congress, like that rep. guy, how much did he get? or The gal from Louisiana.. $300 million? awesome! What will they do for $50? anything "french" or "special"? I'd say I was too cynical...but $300 million for one vote? Is that a record? | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Not for profit doesnt mean you dont make money! Your balance sheet sums just have to show a zero sum gain at the end of the year. And in Blue Cross favor they do a lot of recommended time donations from employees for community groups... and report that as a deduction (more hard currency for bonuses) DAMHIK The Vets Admin, Social Security, and Labor and Industries have been sued for benefits; in fact that is the firms specialty. The lawyers are amazingly quiet on this big legaleeze bill of 2000+ pages, you should really start to ask why. And I know the EPA and FAA get sued all the time too. | ||
| Court |
The current Health Care Bill is potentially the largest joke ever played on Americans. Interesting that an overwhelming majority are against it yet representatives voted for it. Sea Change in the works. The current house bill leaves 25,000,000 folks uninsured and does nearly nothing to "improve" health care. If you want a flavor for the efficiency you can expect in delivery go to the post office . . I had ONE BOOK to mail the other day and stood in line, I started at 27th, at the MAIN postal facility in Staten Island, for 52 minutes. Their attitude is that I was lucky to have a line to stand in. The currently proposed bills are the predictable result of the outcome when nearly 50% of the country fails to accept responsibility and expects someone else to pay their bills. We need improvements and we need to make certain that those unable to afford (that, by the way excludes ILLEGAL ALIENS who should rightfully be marched to the border and returned to their country) it but neither the current version of the house or senate bills do anything to address the real problems. Everybody who believes that Obama is going to fund the program by "eliminating waste and fraud" . . take another deep breather of the NO2 | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Yes, I know BC/BS pays well. I have a friend who works for them. However, it's not like every employee is making a million dollars a year. Furthermore, if you think the federal government won't be paying "well" I have a bridge in NY to sell you. | ||
| Court |
For a quick glimpse look at what Michelle Obama's 22 assistants are earning. | ||
| Aesquire |
I'm sorry, I should have said "executive" bonus's. Remember the original "Rollerball"? "you'll think you were an executive" was a tag line in a commercial... Another great line ( from IMDB )"Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it's ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions." Few employees at BC/BS make millions, but some do. That's true of some other non-profits, Charities that only pay management, use volunteer labor, and have presidents with 737's for private use. ( not having the reference handy, I won't name names, but I've gone door to door for one that I now hear allegedly only uses 40% of income for the charity..) Others do very good work & don't make millions for the leaders. Consider Govt. A New York Congresscritter under investigation ( but oh, so quietly...and no results until after the next election, or the next ) has houses in the Caribbean, rent controlled houses in the Big Apple, keeps forgetting the odd half million in various banks, etc. etc. On a salary that no way in heck can pay for these things. ( and he's not one of the ones who was rich before election ) So, I'm betting a 2074 page bill that taxes me but does not provide real changes until after the election in 2010 is a rip off without reading a page. |
