Note to CBO: Cut out insurors and save $400 BILLION (Single Payer saves billions)

[librechik]

So the current plan won't save any money? Quit ignoring the single payer plan and work on saving hundred of billions!

Can our Congress get any more nonsensical? Why do they ignore the right things and obsess over irrelevant side issues?

This wouldn't be happening if we had publicly financed elections. Our servants would be real public servants instead of well-financed whores.


Why does this news stay buried?
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=2023

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. They know goddamn well that single payer is the best solution

For everybody BUT the corporations, that is. Yet it's the corporations that come first. At the expense of the rest of us. And by "expense", I don't just mean money :evilfrown:

[Oregone]

2. Here is a stale study analyzing the savings, which are large:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/349/8/768



From an article on this study:

"Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286.0 billion in 2003, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/8800.php

[gratuitous]

3. The CBO has analyzed only a couple of parts of the program

That's all that's been submitted to them for analysis so far. Part of what hasn't been submitted are the savings from economies of scale, and certainly not the savings to be realized from not paying insurance company executive gazillions of dollars. Those parts of health care reform are still being worked on, and haven't been submitted to the CBO.

So anyone pretending that the CBO has issued its final pronouncement on the cost of health care reform is misinformed, disingenuous or:

LYING.

[librechik]

4. That would be the dozens of media swans trumpetting the misleading CBO figures everywhere?

as if they were authoritative?

Because any DUer who decides to respond to one of my posts in 24 pt type (red) with the first word
being "Lying" would have to be either blind or mean-spirited--or perhaps just

too tired to discuss an ongoing fluid situation without name-calling and drawing lines in the sand?

Do you work for the CBO and was I slandering you? I apologize.

[gratuitous]

7. It's 72 point type

And I apologize; I wasn't calling you out, but rather the popular media organs that are pretending that the preliminary CBO analysis is anywhere near complete when large portions of the health care reform legislation haven't even been written.

As you have perceptively noted, once the savings from insurance costs are taken into account, the CBO's numbers will be changed greatly. As for the dozens of media swans, yes, they are missing the boat. Why? I don't know, but I offered three plausible alternatives, including outright lying. But mcjoan at the Daily Kos has a pretty good write-up here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/17/754557/-Media-Failing-Again-on-Healthcare-Reform

The article and its links are a fine starting point for dissecting the current media "coverage" of the anticipated cost of health care reform.

[librechik]

12. of course, &thx, dear gratuitous--and did you see this TPM post about the CBO figures

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/associated-press-explains-its-thinking--somewhat.php

As reprted by swan kings the AP, CBO fails to mention that 1.3 T of the 1.6 T cost conjured up by their bean counters at the CBO is already offset (i.e. paid for)in the bill--very interesting that is not mentioned

[moondust]

10. Curious what they have looked at.

Of course it may cost more in the short term to add capacity--facilities, CT scanners, health care workers, etc.--to serve millions more patients but...those additions would mean jobs and an economic boost and better health care for more people which are a big net positive in the long term.

:shrug:

[gratuitous]

11. From the Daily Kos story link above

The key thing to remember about Elmendorf's remarks is that CBO has, so far, seen just two pieces of legislation. One is the bill that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed earlier this week. That bill doesn't include the types of reforms that would make a big difference in long-term spending trends, but that's mostly a function of jurisdiction. HELP can't touch Medicare or Medicaid, nor can it fiddle with the tax code. Yet it's through those two levers Congress would most likely influence the growth in health care costs. (It remains to be seen what the Senate Finance Committee, which has that jurisdiction, will do.)

The other piece of legislation CBO has seen--the bill produced by three House committees working together--is another story. That's a complete bill, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax system. And the experts who have studied the language closely--or, at least, those I've contacted in the last few days--seem to agree with Elmendorf: The bill, they say, doesn't include the sorts of big reforms that would reduce costs significantly.

But that bill is still very much a work in progress, as House leaders themselves acknowledge. And the White House, among others, has some ideas about how to shape it.

I think the take-away is in the last paragraph: the bill is "still very much a work in progress." Surely the bulldogs of the Fourth Estate are aware of this, but for some reason choose to ignore that fact as they run their scary headlines and put on their frowniest faces.

[librechik]

13. The media is helping kill the legislation (and Obama's numbers)

at the bidding of their corporate mistresses. More activism, comrades! We can be scarier than the CEOS, esp in vast numbers!

[Wapsie B]

5. I knew it was bad but had no idea it was like this:

"Hospital Administration

The average U.S. hospital devoted 24.3 percent of spending to administration. Hospital administration consumed $87.6 billion, or $315 per capita (Table 1). In Canada, hospital administration cost $3.1 billion — 12.9 percent of hospital spending, or $103 per capita."

I wonder how long hospitals in this country can afford to be so top-heavy? Gotta fire those janitors so we can pay for that MBA down the hall. :eyes:

[wroberts189]

6. +5

[kath]

8. "well-financed whores" +10

[City Lights]

9. Agreed.

:thumbsup:

[Festivito]

14. Money. And we don't do anything about it. /nt

[Wednesdays]

15. K&R

:kick:

[jotsy]

16. Leadership to me, means calling out the health insurance industry

for the irrelevant middleman it is.

They participate in the services we receive the least and somehow manage to walk away with the biggest cut of the cash that flows. I have heard insurance explained as a bet between you and your provider, well if that's so, they've been welshing on that bet, haven't they? Repeatedly and consistently?
Why don't we ask the RW and MSM about the desk jockeys with no medical training who are already getting between us and our doctors,(who, by the way, are by and large feeling gagged)making decisions about what we need or how much it should cost and whether or not your procedure can be scheduled during a more advantageous moment in the billing cycle.
If politicians can't stop these corporate hounds from feeding on the public they swore to represent, fire them all for breech of contract now and get officials who demonstrate they understand who they work for. Tell them all as often and as loudly as you can-non profit health care is the only route to what serves the interests of us all.