Axelrod: "What Dean isn't telling you...."

[Clio the Leo]

I know I'm not the ONLY one who saw it. Earlier on Morning Joe, David Axelrod in response to Howard Dean said, "What Howard Dean isn't telling you when he says that insurance companies would be able to charge seniors three times that of younger Americans is that they're currently charging FIVE times as much as younger Americans."

(Video)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/34461861#34461861

Discuss.......


And another prespective (with the disclaimer that I dont like the title)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/12/has_howard_dean_lost_his_mind.html

[uponit7771]

1. Deans word pulls a lot of weight, they should have a sit down no doubt

[Hutzpa]

22. +10

after all this is over, yes.

[tularetom]

2. When the Washington POSt defends the senate bill

it makes me even more leery of it.

[BklnDem75]

17. Why?

Are you sure you're not confusing it with the Washington Times?

[tularetom]

19. Are you sure you aren't confusing it with the Post of Watergate days?

It has pretty much turned into an inside the beltway rag.

It's management has effectively purged it of all progressive editorial voices. It still prominently features hacks like David Broder and Howard Kurtz.

It runs op eds by SARAH PALIN for crissakes. And then defends her as someone with a valid point of view.

It has gone down the crapper big time. There is no compariison with the product of the Ben Bradley/Katherine Graham days.

It has a ways to go before it becomes as bad as the Washington Times but it's gaining on it.

However I still like their crossword puzzles.

[napi21]

3. IS that true? I don't have any way of verifying that &

I trust Howard over Axlerod.

[tekisui]

11. Either way. Axelrod is just saying it is a smaller turd.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. And that is a nice distillation of the issue

Yes, charging seniors 3x as opposed to 5x is an "improvement" but it does not move into the range of acceptability even though its better than the status quo. Reform is not simply anything that is better than the status quo that's like saying my dog only bites me twice a day now and used to bite three times a day. You're marginally better, but you're still suffering.

The more they dicker around the edges like this and actually think that 3x is better than 5, the more people realize that they are simply not on the same page as the average American and the only thing that will get us there is in fact single payer.

I was NOT a militant single payer person before - I felt confident that my new President would bring home healthcare similar to an amalgamation of the Dutch Swiss and German plans - some combination of public/private that would actually be accessible and affordable for all Americans. I thought there would be some real regulation with severe price controls as a little payback for the deaths and bankruptcies than can be laid at the door of our current plan and I thought our drug prices would be brought into line with the rest of the worlds. I can say that I have been proven wrong on every single point.

So now Obama and the rest of them HAVE transformed me into a militant single payer. I will join, I will contribute, I will march, I will press my representatives, I will make it the cause of my life.

My second cause will be election reform/campaign finance reform and I will hop on anyone's bandwagon who champions that.

[msongs]

7. gee the obvious solution is to to charge seniors ZERO times as much - Axelrod can't do the math nt

[tranche]

25. You should flip campaign finance reform and single payer as causes.

Without the former you will never have the latter.

[blueworld]

5. What Axelrod isn't telling you...

is that there isn't one single cap on their ability to raise premiums immediately after the bill is passed, and we know they will. They can't disallow "pre-existing conditions", however if there's no regulation of the cost they don't have to. And without the Medicare buy-in seniors get screwed again, and it wasn't such a hot compromise anyway.

[Raine1967]

6. I hope the video of that comes out.

That is very interesting, at the very least.

[Armstead]

8. All of the proponents of this admit is it a shit sandwich -- So why not try to do better?

I read your link.

Even though it is yet another of those "Let's pass whatever we can" apologies for a bad bill, the auther acknowledged so many of the problems unaddressed in this bill and the failures.

That is what is reallly bugging me in this whole process. Howard Dean gets beaten up for suggesting ways to actually do something better, while the same people acknowledge what an inadequate and bad pievce of nionsense the current form of the bill is.

"It's sufficient to discriminate against older people by charging them three times higher. Therefore this is a good bill."

This bill has been so screwed up by the effiorts of Congress and Obama to make the insurance insurance happy that it is worse than niothing.

Don't kill real health reform by passing a poison-pill bill.....Instead, why not get it right?

[xchrom]

9. Did axelrod mention that no caps

On premiums bit of business?

[tekisui]

10. That is the WH's best defense? That is weak, and just proves Dean right.

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. My feeling exactly

It's like saying we are reforming the problem of income inequity in America by raising minimum wages by 10 cents an hour while doing nothing to reign in a ten fold increase in executive compensation while the cost of living continues to rise faster than the increased minimum wage.

Obama's current solution does not resolve the underlying problem, hence it is ineffective reform. I might accept it as a stand alone WITHOUT it being tied to forced individual mandates to purchase private insurance, but insurance will remain unaffordable to many who now will be subject to legal sanctions for not being able to afford it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. if the insurance companies were axed then it would be = 0

I don't see why we can't do the single payer thing

[Clio the Leo]

14. video link added....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/34461861#34461861

[rockymountaindem]

15. Oh that's impressive

If we're going to regulate them, let's make it meaningful, eh?

[peoli]

16. thanks

[Vinca]

18. The most idiotic defense of a bad policy I've ever heard.

Rather than being raped 5 times, this way you only get raped 3 times.

[HardWorkingDem]

20. Oh, so what he is saying is.....

three kicks in the nutsack is fine, but five is simply too much...

I get it now....

[NashVegas]

23. Yeah, Basically

[Mass]

21. It depends where. Some states have more stringent laws. The ability to sell insurance across state

lines would destroy that. In MA, for example, the limit is two times. This is the point he is making.

Even with this, the effect is simple. Older people not eligible for Medicare cut their insurance and go for one with less coverage because they cannot afford the premium.

[Fleshdancer]

24. Healthcare reform: getting screwed just a little bit less by corporations in some ways.

:wtf:

If this is the official WH argument, then it's no wonder progressives and Howard Dean are so damn frustrated.