Socialism or Payola-ism?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

The Congressional opponents of real healthcare reform -single payer or a real public option- decry those plans as "socialism". They would prefer to keep alive a parasitic, inefficient, travesty of a healthcare system, BECAUSE THEY ARE PAID TO THINK AND VOTE THAT WAY.

And ironically, in their plans, they usually keep in place some form of tax credit or subsidy in order to help people purchase the private plans they are espousing. So it is STILL being government financed to some degree. They are betting the American farm on an industry whose business model doesn't work, since the basis of it is to deny the services it is being paid to offer. It works for them now, at the expense and death of the American citizen, but it can't possibly work in the future if they are forced to open coverage to everyone, without larger and larger subsidies from the American taxpayer. We will end up with a de-facto federally funded insurance program that will continue to line the pockets of the few at the expense of the many.

[KharmaTrain]

1. Welcom To Betlway Lets Make A Deal

I think a lot of the Blue Dogs are playing both ends against the middle...creating obstructions and holding out for deals...how Washington has worked. While some Blue Dogs are in the pockets of the big insurance money, there are others who see a chance to play turd in the punchbowl so they can get attention and money for a pet project of theirs. They'll say they are against the current plan but quietly they're giving the list of things they want in exchange for their vote. Even others are more than happy to sell their vote to the highest bidder.

The current insurance "model" makes it impossible to cover anyone except the hail and hardy. Imagine how devestating things would be if we didn't have Medicare and Medicaid...how many people would be turned away or given substandard care. Inversely, having a umbrella policy in addition to Medicare was well worth the money in my parents final days as they both wrung up thousands of dollars in care costs that either one of the two policies picked up. This is public option at work...but you don't hear anyone in the insurance world saying how good it is cause their profits are made off the healthy...those who will pay month in and out for 20 or 30 years with few, if any claims.

We haven't seen the real push yet on either side...that won't happen until a bill gets to the House floor. So much we hear now are out of third parties or "unofficial sources". I'm waiting to see what bill reaches the house floor.

Cheers...

[Laelth]

2. You nailed it. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. Thanks. Just talking to someone and we realize that the entire "insurance" construct

just isn't appropriate for healthcare. I said what I said in my post, that health insurance only works if it denies services and I asked, what industry could possibly survive based on denial of its product. He said "But that's how all insurance works."

Right. Car insurance works because ALL cars aren't inevitably involved in accidents. Property insurance works because ALL houses don't eventually burn down. But human beings WILL inevitably get sick or have accidents or simply age into physical decline. Notice how the insurance industry was ok with allowing the government to takeover that part of the population that HAS to have healthcare - the elderly. Except now, of course they can make heaps of money with the Medicare Part D supplements. (you remember, that other great bill that Congress delivered for us that FORBADE drug price negotiation?)

Insurance is the least part of healthcare and just gets between the providers and the patients. Americans are just sadly, sadly clueless and ill-informed about the connection between insurance and actual care.

[Laelth]

4. I've seen Allentown Jake make that argument persuasively.

Insurance is designed to protect you from a rare calamity. People need health care all the time. As such, it makes no sense for insurance to cover the health care needs of people.

Makes sense to me. Sad that our leaders don't "get" this.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. There is no "insurance" from the inevitable

I'm not surprised that Allentown Jake has arrived at this conclusion. I find myself agreeing with him often.

But this really is a major point. Insurance has NO role in healthcare excpet to function as an unnecessary, cost-increasing middleman. As people say, they add no value to the proposition, except for lining their own pockets with money that would be better spent on actual care.

[Laelth]

6. You'll get no argument from me on that observation. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. Evening kick.