Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[DanaC]

Jesus, it wasn't offered as anything other than an opinion piece by someone who'd experienced healthcare on both sides of the pond.

Of course you can start a blog and say whatever you want and cite it...and it would mean about as much as any other blog. Depends why you're citing it. Citing it as factual evidence? Problem. Citing it as an opinion piece? Just fine.

The article (and it is technically an article) was posted, by me, to show a different perspective. As indeed was the second article I posted which gives a very different experience of healthcare in the UK and US.

[classicman]

My point was that it was a blog, not an article.
I guess my distinction is an opinion that I alone share, apologies all around.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The only reason we're competitive in longevity at all is that we keep inventing stuff like portable defibrillators to shock us back to health when we cough up a lung at a craps table.
...
I was on a roll.

Portable defibrillators don't help coughed up lungs.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

I am baffled by the whining here about how wonderful private medical care in the US is when our system is extremely costly and run for the benefit of big pharma and doctors who play the system for kick backs, etc. The patient is steam rolled in the scramble for the dollar.

I agree to a small degree but the idea that medical docs "play the system for kick backs" I think is a bit overblown. I work in a number of medical groups and I don't see this. None of them want to talk to pharm reps at all, they really can't stand them. The system is steam rolled for the dollar but the patients just get caught up in the wheels, the target may be the money, but it is not the patient. At least not in the places I have worked.

[DanaC]

Nye Bevan, the father of the NHS, said of the negotiated settlement with consultants, that he had 'stuffed their mouths with gold' as the only way to get them on board. Which is how consultants are able to work both for the NHS and for their own private practices at the same time, unlike GPs (family doctors)who have to choose.

Nowadays most medical professionals in the Uk are supporters of the NHS. But there was a hell of a lot of disquiet from those who felt they might earn less when the system was first devised.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

But there was a hell of a lot of disquiet from those who felt they might earn less when the system was first devised.

I have no doubt that that is a huge factor in this country. But in this country Medicine is a business, and it has been that way for a very long time. I don't see it changing to much in the near future.

[TheMercenary]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration says it will end a controversial health care waiver program in September.

Officials announced Friday that all applications for new waivers and renewals of existing ones have to be in by Sept. 22.

That would remove a potential political distraction in the 2012 elections.

The waivers deal with a part of the new health care law that restricts annual dollar limits on coverage. They won't be needed when the law goes into full effect in 2014, because taxpayer-subsidized insurance will be broadly available.( )

If there is no problem with them why end them for political purposes.

And so far no "taxpayer-subsidized insurance" exists, other than what already exists and has been unable to function efficiently and effectively. No Federal insurance exchanges exist. And everyone must buy insurance from a comercial vendor. Pony up McDonald's, Walmart, and Unions. The gig is up!

[TheMercenary]

Rut-row.... More evidence of fudged numbers.

When ObamaCare passed, the Obama administration’s top officials repeatedly assured the public that it was not just fiscally sound but fiscally responsible: a path toward long-term deficit reduction and better health care budgeting. What the White House and its allies neglected to mention was that they’d tacked an unworkable, unsustainable $70 billion long-term care entitlement onto the bill in order to dress up its official budget projections. It’s called the CLASS (Community Living Assistance Service and Supports) Act, and it helped ObamaCare score big on decade-long deficit reduction estimates. Its designers even promised that it would be self-sustaining for at least 75 years.

It’s not. Starting around 2030, the program will spend far more than it takes in, leading to tens of billions in new deficit spending with each successive decade. Whose idea of fiscal responsibility was this?

President Obama signed the health care overhaul into law, but it was former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) who made the push to include CLASS in the package. According to Timothy Carney of The Washington Examiner, Kennedy’s former aide Connie Garner played a key role in crafting the legislation governing the program. Just two months after the law passed, Gardner left Capitol Hill to take a job as the CEO at a new advocacy coalition funded by long-term care industry groups and dedicated to—you guessed it—lobbying Congress on the CLASS Act. CLASS may cost America dearly. But it seems to be paying off for Gardner and her clients.

It also paid off for the Obama administration in the health care fight. When the Congressional Budget Office scored the budgetary effects of the law, it counted the $70 billion in premium payments expected to be collected in the program’s first decade toward the law’s alleged deficit reduction—despite the fact that those premiums were eventually supposed to pay for the program’s benefits.

The White House conveniently failed to notice the program's problems during the health care debate. But last fall, the president’s own fiscal commission officially called for a total repeal of the program.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/2...trous-new-long

[TheMercenary]

Both parties are going to have to belly up to the bar and figure this one out. So far both have failed.

The Medicare Test for President

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

[BigV]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Rut-row.... More evidence of fudged numbers.



http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/2...trous-new-long

I disagree with your implication that there was intentional deception involved regarding these numbers.

However, after reading the article, I learned a few things and I have a few questions. I consider the fact that the president's own commission (presumably charged with the task of examining the situation and how to make rules that apply the laws) was the source of this negative conclusion.

the president’s own fiscal commission officially called for a total repeal of the program. At this point, even Obama’s top health care officials won’t stand behind the program’s worthless fiscal design. “While the law outlined a framework for the CLASS Act,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told members of Congress in February, “we determined pretty quickly that it would not meet the requirement that the act be self-sustaining and not rely on taxpayer assistance.” Whoops!

Not bad, but I don't think the inclusion of modifiers like "worthless" and "whoops!" make any helpful contribution. But look, do you really make a mea culpa like this if you "fudged" the numbers in the first place? Or, does this sound more like "we've been paying attention as we progress on this path, and here's something we weren't expecting. Here's our suggestion to improve the situation."

A second point was made later in the argument I wish to discuss.

Why is the Obama administration so keen to get everyone to join? Because the most likely problem the program faces is the specter that haunts all insurance pools: the death spiral. According to researchers at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, it’s a problem to which CLASS is particularly susceptible. Because premiums won’t be based on health status, the program is likely to prove particularly appealing to the sick. The sicker the population, the higher the premiums required to pay for their benefits. But higher premiums will drive away healthy individuals who need benefits less, resulting in an even sicker insurance pool, on average, which in turn will mean even higher premiums. From there, the insurance merry-go-round spins further out of control: higher premiums, reduced enrollment, a sicker and sicker population, and so on and so forth until the program is composed almost entirely of very sick, very expensive individuals. Indeed, in an absurd twist, the program’s broken financing model could hasten the death spiral’s ugly cycle by scaring away healthy individuals who might otherwise have bought in.

This, to me, is a good example of why ONLY having for profit health insurance is not adequate. Imagine public safety as an analogy. What if we only had for profit police protection? What would our crime statistics look like? And, since we don't have that program, how has that impacted the for profit security industry? I don't think there's any negative impact to those folks that want *extra* protection. Our health insurance industry could benefit from the same dual track, but we don't have such an option for health care.

As for the cost, we have a vested public interest in public safety, having secure citizens. We have a similarly compelling interest in public health, having healthy citizens. Both of these interests cost money, but it is money well spent.

[Spexxvet]

WASHINGTON - The American Medical Association maintained its support of a federal health overhaul requirement that Americans obtain insurance coverage or face a tax penalty.

From here

[classicman]

I'm shocked that those who will profit the most financially from the new law support it.

[Fair&Balanced]

At one time or another, four the Republican candidates -- Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Huntsman -- supported the idea of an individual mandate.

[TheMercenary]

Rut Row....

AP NewsBreak: A twist in Obama's health care law

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110621/...verhaul_glitch

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

At one time or another, four the Republican candidates -- Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Huntsman -- supported the idea of an individual mandate.

Oh well that makes a big difference.

Not.