Morning Joke: 'Let's tax the rich and bash the insurance companies."

[flpoljunkie]

That, from Joe. Andrea Mitchell laments the fact the Blue Dogs are taking insurance money and Pelosi is making them 'villains.' Chuck Todd then points out that business might be happy if insurance companies have to get in line. He points out that populism can sometimes work. Pat Buchanan laughs.

"Everybody hates insurance except those who have insurance." Joe says this just after he talks about the doctors who hate insurance companies.

So, there you have it. According to Joe, we consumers love those insurance companies who are screwing us and making egregious profits.

Priceless!

[JHB]

1. Let's give them all Medals of Freedom!

Because there are no greater virtues in this land than gouging the customers and cutting corners on service when it fattens the quarterly report!

:sarcasm: (in case it wasn't obvious)

[flpoljunkie]

3. Speaking of which, here's what Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive said on Bill Moyers

WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don't want to compete against a more efficient competitor.

BILL MOYERS: You told Congress that the industry has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street. You said, "I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors." How do they satisfy their Wall Street investors?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, there's a measure of profitability that investors look to, and it's called a medical loss ratio. And it's unique to the health insurance industry. And by medical loss ratio, I mean that it's a measure that tells investors or anyone else how much of a premium dollar is used by the insurance company to actually pay medical claims. And that has been shrinking, over the years, since the industry's been dominated by, or become dominated by for-profit insurance companies. Back in the early '90s, or back during the time that the Clinton plan was being debated, 95 cents out of every dollar was spent, you know, on average was used by the insurance companies to pay claims. Last year, it was down to just slightly above 80 percent.

So, investors want that to keep shrinking. And if they see that an insurance company has not done what they think meets their expectations with the medical loss ratio, they'll punish them. Investors will start leaving in droves.

I've seen a company stock price fall 20 percent in a single day, when it did not meet Wall Street's expectations with this medical loss ratio.

For example, if one company's medical loss ratio was 77.9 percent, for example, in one quarter, and the next quarter, it was 78.2 percent. It seems like a small movement. But investors will think that's ridiculous. And it's horrible.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html

[Vinca]

2. Tax the rich and bash insurance companies?

Who knew Joe had a decent plan?

[flpoljunkie]

4. Ha!

[high density]

5. Chuck Todd is right, but we aren't ever hearing that angle of things

I don't think any non-health insurance businesses are pleased to be shelling out more and more every year to cover their employees health coverage. Either that or the company is offloading more of the cost onto their employees, while simultaneously suspending raises or demanding pay cuts.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Joe is now fixated on demonizing Nancy Pelosi who yesterday called insurance companies 'immoral.'

He's badgering guests to refute what she said. Eugene Robinson wimped out and said he would not have it quite that way. Grow a pair, Eugene! They are immoral, and you know it. The Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings danced around the issue a bit, but supported Pelosi on this--despite Scarborough's repeated attempts to get him to do otherwise.

The Speaker of the House is tough. She can take it. Pelosi has been a great supporter of Obama's policies and will continue to work for real healthcare reform despite repeated demonization by the likes of Joe Scarborough.

[Dawgs]

7. Right Joe! I love the 44% increase health insurance just put onto my company.

A government plan, like a widly successful medicare, would be so much worse. :sarcasm:

[Ganja Ninja]

8. "Everybody hates insurance except those who have insurance."

Wrong again Pat! I have insurance and I hate it and I'm not alone. That's why 72% of the American people want a single payers system.

[TheKentuckian]

9. Good stuff Schmo. We'll be happy to get on that., we didn't know you guys were so onboard.

If you have a couple times the average person's pay in disposable income maybe you can kick in an extra maybe 5% that isn't coming close to taking food off your table and allowing citizens lives to be lost or decimated to insure an industries profits is both soulless and a literal threat to our national security and integrity.

Played right mixed with absorbing and then answering all the concern troll like questions on the public option concept a little "rope a dope" into single payer discussion could emerge that allows an honest public option.
Let them play their hand and then lay out how those answers are right there in about every area of issue that doesn't involve industry profits, including the need for the overwhelming majority of the employees.

They are coming close to walking into a frame that makes the opposition either back off the plate enough to make some substantial headway or invest themselves into defending an unpopular industry tooth and nail.
They can be made to actually present the argument for a single payer system by just connecting a couple of dots and then have to turn around and argue with themselves to protect a leach class's profits.

Hell, if some are right we could get a tipping point and even actually stumble ass backwards into single payer.

[rocktivity]

10. Finally, something Joe and I can agree on!

:eyes:
rocktivity

[Supersedeas]

11. Ms. Greenspan and Joe's Powdered Sidekick really put on a show

[Taxitall]

12. the amount of waste and overhead

by Obamacare is going to completely eclipse the current waste and profits COMBINED that current health insurance companies bring in. congress couldn't even predict the amount of demand for the 'cash for clunkers' program because they rushed it through so fast, and they are giving the health care proposal the same amount of consideration-- none.

[Honeycombe8]

13. Ha. No one LOVES ins. cos., Joe. Insurance is a necessary evil...necessary only

because costs have risen so high, we can't afford health care w/o it. In the old days, few people had insurance, but health care costs were so reasonable that the average person could pay for a dr. visit, monthly medication, a cast for a broken leg, or whatever ordinary ailment or injury might occur. And all this was in the day and age when everything WAS HANDWRITTEN...no thought of it being all typed, much less automated and computerized.

Insurance, in the old days, was for catastrophes.

But enter insurance companies, and costs started to skyrocket.

Yeah....I LOVE my insurance company, Joe. I LOVE my mortgage company, too. And I LOVE the MVA for the license plates they let me buy from them. And I LOVE the company that runs the local tollroad I use almost every day.

:sarcasm:

[Autumn]

14. Sounds good to me .'Let's tax the rich and

bash the insurance companies." I don't know , I have no problem with either.
:shrug: I used to work with an old woman who would get mad at whatever and whoever and she would say "fuck them in the neck and feed them fish" I have no idea what she meant by that, but it does present a hell of a visual when I think about it.