When Republicans call HCR socialist or Communist, they aren’t lying

[eridani]

That’s because they are not actually talking about the contents of the bill— but they are telling the truth about their own values. The principal value invoked is that government spending to help people other than themselves is a bad thing in and of itself. Unfortunately, Democrats aren’t countering this attack with firm statements of their own values. If you can’t point to a reasonably large constituency that is benefiting from HCR, you need to talk about values.

Instead, their talking points (posted here on a daily basis) are nothing but laundry lists of limited benefits for microconstituencies which tend to bore average voters shitless. Not that they have much choice, because the fundamental value underlying current "reform" is among the vilest and most despicable our culture has to offer. Bluntly stated, that fundamental value is that people deserve only the amount of health care they can pay for.

You can't sell that value to most working people, who don't generally like the idea that they won't be classified as Platinum people. The other HCR designations for your worth as a human being are Gold, Silver and Bronze. The "exchange" has those levels, the lowest level (Bronze) only paying 60% of health care costs. The silver level pays 70%, and those two levels are the only ones eligible for subsidy. (You could also add a Dirt category for older people who will have to pay three times as much for useless underinsurance.)

No other developed country, even those working through regulated private insurance, has more that ONE basic comprehensive plan. True, supplemental plans are available for those who want more, but the fundamental underlying value is that everyone is entitled to a basic comprehensive level of care.

If you don't have the money to pay for higher levels of coverage, you are worth less as a human being. People are nothing, and sick people don't deserve care if it interferes with insurance companies' use of them to make a buck. Who in the hell wants to hear that? No wonder the fallback is a laundry list.

If you disagree, how would you make a values-based argument for HCR? That helping people is a good thing, but not without huge bribes to useless parasitic insurance companies?

[old mark]

1. The PHILOSOPHY of it offends them - they see every person as standing

on his own, except of course for those with very good elected positions and their very rich friends and supporters...I mean, there is a limit to everything...


mark

[BzaDem]

2. "who will have to pay three times as much for useless underinsurance"

Do you have any evidence that silver plans on the exchanges will actually be useless "underinsurance?" Or is that just a bullshit comment meant to further propaganda against the bill?

[eridani]

4. Yes. By definition 60% or 70% actuarial value is uesless underinsurance

How are you supposed to pay for ongoing care with co-pays that high?

[BzaDem]

10. If you are actually interested in facts as opposed to spin and bullshit, feel free to look at MA

https://www.mahealthconnector.org

Doctor visit: 20 copay
Generic RX: 15 copay
Emergency room: 100 copay

As opposed to

Doctor visit: Hundreds of dollars
Generic RX: ~100
Emergency room: Thousands of dollars

Any questions?

[eridani]

11. Why is MA health care the most expensive in the nation?

Why are they cutting back benefits?
What about the sick low income uninsured who STILL can't afford insurance.



MANDATORY INSURANCE IS WORSE THAN NONE AT ALL
By Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/health_reform_failur.php
The Boston Globe
September 17, 2007


IN 1966 - just before Medicare and Medicaid were launched - 47 million Americans were uninsured. By 1975, the United States had reached an all time low of 21 million without coverage. Now, according to the Census Bureau’s latest figures, we’re back where we started, with 47 million uninsured in 2006 - up 2.2 million since 2005. But this time, most of the uninsured are neither poor nor elderly.

The middle class is being priced out of healthcare. Virtually all of this year’s increase was among families with incomes above $50,000; in fact, two-thirds of the newly uncovered were in the above-$75,000 group. And full-time workers accounted for 56 percent of the increase, with their children making up much of the rest.

The new Census numbers are particularly disheartening for anyone hoping for a Massachusetts miracle. In the Commonwealth, 651,000 residents are uninsured, 65 percent more than the figure used by state leaders in planning for health reform. Their numbers came from a telephone survey done in English and Spanish. But that misses people who lack a land-line phone - 43.9 percent of phoneless adults are uninsured, according to other studies.

It also skips over the 523,000 non-English speakers in Massachusetts whose native language isn’t Spanish (e.g. Portuguese, Chinese, or Haitian-Creole), another group with a high uninsurance rate. In contrast, the Census Bureau goes door-to-door for its survey and has translators for almost every language. It gets a more complete picture.

In sum, Massachusetts health reform planners have been wishing away a quarter of a million uninsured people. Recent Patrick administration claims that health reform is succeeding are based on cooked books. According to the state’s figures, almost half of the previously uninsured gained coverage under the health reform bill by July 1. But according to the Census Bureau, the new sign-ups amount to less than one-quarter of the uninsured. Moreover, it’s likely that much of that gain has already been wiped out by shrinking job-based coverage - a longstanding and nationwide trend.

Why has progress been so meager? Because most of the promised new coverage is of the “buy it yourself” variety, with scant help offered to the struggling middle class. According to the Census Bureau, only 28 percent of Massachusetts uninsured have incomes low enough to qualify for free coverage. Thirty-four percent more can get partial subsidies - but the premiums and co-payments remain a barrier for many in this near-poor group.

And 244,000 of Massachusetts uninsured get zero assistance - just a stiff fine if they don’t buy coverage. A couple in their late 50s faces a minimum premium of $8,638 annually, for a policy with no drug coverage at all and a $2,000 deductible per person before insurance even kicks in. Such skimpy yet costly coverage is, in many cases, worse than no coverage at all. Illness will still bring crippling medical bills - but the $8,638 annual premium will empty their bank accounts even before the bills start arriving. Little wonder that barely 2 percent of those required to buy such coverage have thus far signed up.

While the middle class sinks, the health reform law has buoyed our state’s wealthiest health institutions. Hospitals like Massachusetts General are reporting record profits and enjoying rate increases tucked into the reform package. Blue Cross and other insurers that lobbied hard for the law stand to gain billions from the reform, which shrinks their contribution to the state’s free care pool and will force hundreds of thousands to purchase their defective products. Meanwhile, new rules for the free care pool will drastically cut funding for the hundreds of thousands who remain uninsured, and for the safety-net hospitals and clinics that care for them. (Disclosure - we’ve practiced for the past 25 years at a public hospital that is currently undergoing massive budget cuts.)

Health reform built on private insurance isn’t working and can’t work; it costs too much and delivers too little. At present, bureaucracy consumes 31 percent of each healthcare dollar. The Connector - the new state agency created to broker coverage under the reform law - is adding another 4.5 percent to the already sky-high overhead charged by private insurers. Administrative costs at Blue Cross are nearly five times higher than Medicare’s and 11 times those in Canada’s single payer system. Single payer reform could save $7.7 billion annually on paperwork and insurance profits in Massachusetts, enough to cover all of the uninsured and to upgrade coverage for the rest of us.

Of course, single payer reform is anathema to the health insurance industry. But breaking their stranglehold on our health system and our politicians is the only way for health reform to get beyond square one.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program and are primary care doctors at Cambridge Hospital.

[BzaDem]

19. You of course conveniently forgot to mention in your propaganda that costs in MA were already

the highest in the nation BEFORE the reforms were enacted.

Pretty convenient omission, eh? Without context, your bullshit sounds really convincing. You almost got away with it too.

[eridani]

22. The reforms made sick low income people vastly worse off than they were before

People like Kathryn are just so much disposable human garbage to you. Homeless or dead is a perfectly reasonable choice to those who kill for profit. On bahalf of her, I say fuck you straight to hell.

Statement of Rachel Nardin, MD., President, Massachusetts Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and assistant professor of neurology at Harvard

In April 2006, Massachusetts enacted a health care reform law with the stated goal of providing near-universal coverage of the Massachusetts population. Nearly three years into the reform we know a lot about what has worked and what hasn't. Examining this data critically is vitally important as the Obama administration considers elements of the Massachusetts' plan as a model for national health care reform.

On Feb. 19 we released a new study on the Massachusetts reform. This study details many problems with the reform effort. We are also releasing a letter from nearly 500 Massachusetts physicians to Senator Kennedy asking him not to push for a Massachusetts-style reform nationally. My colleagues and I see the effects of the Massachusetts reform on patients every day and know that this is not a healthy model for the nation.

The Massachusetts reform is an example of an “incremental” reform. It tried to fill in gaps in coverage, while leaving undisturbed existing public and private health insurance programs. It did this by expanding Medicaid, and offering a new subsidized coverage program for the poor and near-poor. It also mandated that middle-income uninsured people either purchase private insurance or pay a substantial fine ($1068 in 2009).

The reform has reduced the numbers of uninsured, although our report shows that the state's claim is untrue. This claim is based on a phone survey that reached few non-English speaking households and few who lacked landline phones—two groups with high rates of uninsurance. Other data also calls this claim into question. For instance, both the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and the March 2008 U.S. Census Bureau survey indicate that at least 5 percent of people in Massachusetts remain uninsured. Moreover, the use of free care services in Massachusetts has fallen by only a third, suggesting that the numbers of uninsured in Massachusetts may well be even higher than 5 percent.

Despite the reform, coverage remains unaffordable for many in our state. As a result, despite the threat of a fine, some residents remain uninsured. Others have bought the required insurance but are suffering financially. For a middle income, 56-year-old man, the cheapest policy available under the reform costs $4,872 annually in premiums alone. Moreover, it carries a $2,000 deductible and 20 percent co-payments after that, up to a maximum of $3000 annually. Buying such coverage means laying out nearly $7000 before expenses before the insurance pays a single medical bill. It is not surprising that many of the state's uninsured have declined such coverage.

The study we released on Feb. 19 also reminds us that having health insurance is not the same thing as having health care. Despite having coverage, many Massachusetts residents cannot afford care. In some cases, patients are actually worse off under the reform than they were under the state's old system of free care because their new insurance has far higher co-pays for medications and care. According to a recent Boston Globe/Blue Cross Foundation survey, 13% of people with insurance in our state were unable to pay for some health services that they had received and 13% could not afford to fill necessary prescriptions. The reform does not appear to have reduced the numbers of people who were unable to get care that they needed because of the cost.

I will close with the story of one Massachusetts patient who has suffered as a result of the reform. Kathryn is a young diabetic who needs twelve prescriptions a month to stay healthy. She told us “Under Free Care I saw doctors at Mass. General and Brigham and Women's hospital. I had no co-payments for medications, appointments, lab tests or hospitalization. Under my Commonwealth Care Plan my routine monthly medical costs include the $110 premium, $200 for medications, a $10 appointment with my primary care doctor, and $20 for a specialist appointment. That's $340 per month, provided I stay well.” Now that she's “insured,” Kathryn's medical expenses consume almost one-quarter of her take home pay, and she wonders whether she'll be able to continue taking her life saving medications.

[BzaDem]

25. You are the one that couldn't give two shits about Kathryn.

If this bill weren't enacted, Katheryn would be paying a TON more than 340/month for her medications/healthcare. In fact, the best thing that could ever happen to Kathryn is to take your policy prescription of killing this bill, and doing the EXACT opposite. (In general, that seems to be the optimal course with regards to your policy prescriptions -- simply do the exact opposite of what you propose.)

Progress in this country happens DESPITE people with your views, not because of people with your views. Luckily, there are so few of you that it really doesn't impede too much. While you would like nothing more than to repeal this bill and have Kathryn pay 50%+ of her income on healthcare, it is a good thing that 80%+ of Democrats are actually sane and approve of the bill over the status quo.

[eridani]

29. Bullsthit. Can't you understand that money was stripped from the programs

--that used to give her free care in order to force her pay into the profit margins of mass murderers?

Why not just pass a law legalizing rape as long as the rapists use condoms? Then you can sneer at rape victims for being ungrateful for at least being protected from pregnancy and disease, because that's all that's politically possible.

[BzaDem]

3. Your values argument is completely backwards. The pre-reform status quo is one where people

deserve only the healthcare they pay for.

The post-reform world will depend MUCH LESS on money than the pre-reform status quo. People with pre-existing conditions (who consume the most care) will no longer have to pay more than people without them (who consume less). By definition, this weakens the connection between what people pay and what people can receive. In addition, people making up to 400% of the poverty line will pay 9.5% of their income or less (rather than a flat fee that is a much larger percentage of one's income the lower one's income is).

Biden's comment ("Don't compare us to the Almighty, compare us to the alternative") could just as well be said about healthcare. You are comparing reform to an imaginary world where we get single payer (which was never going to happen, notwithstanding peoples' wishes for it). You should instead be comparing it to the pre-reform status quo. Most of the made-up anti-HCR propaganda on this board makes a similar mistake.

[eridani]

5. That 9.5% is a total outrage that should not be allowed to stand

In France, people pay 8% of their income that covers everything--no co-pays, deductibles or age rating. And it's ever so nice to know that the sick and the healthy alike will be fucked over equally by uesless mass murderers.

Right about now I'd love the status quo back--my shitty underinsurance was 20% cheaper back then. And we can't even look forward to Medicare anymore unless that sociopath Alan Simpson is put up against a wall and shot.

[BzaDem]

8. Because of course 9.5% is worse than 20-50% depending on your income

which was the pre-status-quo for a lot of people.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

:rofl:

"Right about now I'd love the status quo back--my shitty underinsurance was 20% cheaper back then."

If you have already bought into the right wing lie that premium increases of that magnitude (which happen ALL THE TIME before the law) are due to the law, then it doesn't surprise me that you are with the group of sheep attacking the bill from the left. People so easily manipulated can be gotten to say or think just about anything.

[eridani]

12. I believe my own experience, which is that NOTHING in HCR is about saving money for patients

Is there something wrong with not wanting mass-murdering sociopaths standing between you and your medicalo provider?

[area51]

16. +1

Again, if our unregulated for-profit system is so wonderful, why is no developed country trying to switch to it?

And if single-payer is so horrible, why don't we stop having single-payer police, fire departments, garbage pickup, roads, schools and libraries?

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people. Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

[BzaDem]

17. What you want or do not want is really besides the point. We are not going to get Single Payer.

The fact that we are not going to get Single Payer in any reasonable amount of time does not depend on whether or not you want single payer. It doesn't even matter if you *really* *really* want it. Anyone that knew the slightest thing about politics would know this. In fact, anyone who is older than 5 should know the difference between wanting something and actually getting it.

The question is whether reform is better than the status quo. So far, you have simply changed the subject every time. You whine about 9.5% without acknowledging that it was 20-50% before (higher percentages for people with lower incomes). You whine about mass-murdering sociopaths without acknowledging that insurance companies were here before the bill. You use your "personal experience" as evidence, which of course has nothing to do with the bill because it hasn't taken into effect yet.

Your posts on this issue are a textbook example of propaganda.

[eridani]

21. According to you then, politics must always and everywhere consist of powerful people

--bankrupting and killing little people. So much for hope and change.

[BzaDem]

24. However you want to put it, we are not getting Single Payer any time soon.

Sorry to state the blatantly obvious.

[eridani]

28. Because of useless shitstains who won't give states that have ALREADY PASSED

--single payer the right to enact it. vermont's Dem candidate for governor is actually campaigning on in. Glad to see you are so thrilled that people in VT, CA and PA can't have what their voters want.

[blindpig]

26. Why should we not get Single Payer?

Because a bunch of rich assholes would rather continue profiting on people's health? That's what it comes down to, the 'politics' are the tail wagged by that dog. The problem ain't Republicans or Blue Dogs, it is Capitalism.

[eridani]

6. State exactly what values underpin HCR in a couple of sentences n/t

[BzaDem]

9. HCR redistributes healthcare from the healthy and rich to the sick and the poor relative to the

status quo.

Done.

(And you can feel free to say "insurance does not equal care, parasites, useless shitty underinsurance," and all the other bullshit talking points a small group of people here spread, but that doesn't mean any of them have the slightest grain of truth to them.)

[eridani]

13. You are flat out lying

The esperiences of just about everyone except for the comfortably affluent contradict that.

[JanMichael]

15. I like you! Please keep calling them what they are.

I don't have the time nor energy anymore but I appreciate your efforts:-)

[BzaDem]

18. The bill hasn't taken effect yet, so your bullshit about "experiences of just about everyone"

is just that. Bullshit. Propaganda. Not facts or truth, but rather made-up mumbo-jumbo that has nothing to do with facts or truth.

The next step from you is eminently predictable. You try to blame cost increases on the bill, since it sounds like effective propaganda without context. But when confronted with the obvious facts that the bill really hasn't taken into effect yet, and that cost increases of this magnitude have been going on for years before the bill was passed, your next step is clear. You will argue that the evil parasites (or whatever the name du jour is) in 2000 went forward in time to 2010, saw the bill passed, and then decided to raise their rates starting in 2000. And your arguments will be even more of a laughing stock than they are now.

Though I do have to say that the deeper hole you dig for yourself, the more transparently obvious it becomes that you deliver nothing but nonsense on this issue. So you should really keep it up -- at this rate your posts will continue eroding credibility for not just yourself, but others who bash the bill from the left with similarly bullshit talking points.

[eridani]

20. That costs continue to go up proves that the bill is useless in cost control

Smug comfortable people think it's just peachy keen that the little people get fucket over for four more years, after which our rapists will start using condoms.

[BzaDem]

23. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? THE BILL HASN'T TAKEN EFFECT YET

so of COURSE costs aren't being lowered. The cost controls by and large do not even START until 2014.

Do you understand the difference between past, present and future? How about cause and effect?

This whole conversation with you is really surreal. It honestly reminds me of the recent O'Donnell tape, in which she said evolution is a myth because we don't see monkeys evolve into humans in front of us with our own very eyes.

[eridani]

27. The reform was postponed for 5 years precisely in order to give the insurcance

--fucktards enough time to destroy the little guy.

[Scuba]

7. If folkas like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin....

"If folks like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh make their careers off of using the word socialism as a slur, how bad could it be?" asks 35-year-old Shane Johnson of Corryville, a union electrician who helped revive Cincinnati's International Socialist Organization chapter this year, which has about a dozen members.

[eridani]

14. Socialism has come to mean being in favor of collectively financing public goods

--at least these days. People have pretty much stopped discussing ownership of the means of production.