I wanted change, and the health care bill represents that change

[ProSense]

When the reform package is perfected over time, I will credit President Obama and the Democrats for taking the pot shots in order to take the first major step toward progress.

[joeybee12]

1. Oh, so you're the one! n/t

[Divine Discontent]

49. let's be honest. one of a couple dozen. be fair.

[atreides1]

2. Question

What proof do you have that it will be perfected over time?

[phleshdef]

4. What proof do you have that it won't be?

Stupid fucking questions barely deserve stupid fucking answers.

[paulk]

6. yep, some answers are just plain stupid

you're really good at it.

[MNDemNY]

11. Because there is not incentive for the Industry to "perfect it"

Other than to increase the penalties for failure to purchase. (and they will) and expanding the semi sized loopholes that are built into this so-called reform bill. Any "progressive" that shills this steaming pile, is not.

[PVnRT]

62. You can't prove a negative

Smart people know that sort of thing.

Maybe you could try answering a legitimate question this time. What evidence do you have that this bill will ever be "improved"?

[niceypoo]

65. Saying, 'they will fix it later,' sounds better than, 'they blew it.'

[dmallind]

5. Not the OP but Medicare got better. Social Security got better. Why not HCR? NT

[Armstead]

7. Because they were started as public social insurance programs

This HCR is being started on the basis of perpetuating private insurance as the sole provider of coverage and access to care.

SS and Medicare can get tampered with (usually after much fuss) using the same architecture that they were started with.

That's going to be considerably more difficult, if not impossible, with the healthcare system reinforced that this bill is based on.

[ProSense]

10. False

This HCR is being started on the basis of perpetuating private insurance as the sole provider of coverage and access to care.

Social programs, Medicare, Medicaid, community health centers, the OPM non-profit plan (or public option in the House), are significantly strengthened or implemented as part of this plan. As for private insurance, the MLR changes to just 5 percent away from the threshold of being considered a government plan.

[Armstead]

13. With the possible -- possible -- exception of a non-profit option...

...and Medicare, the rest are all bandaids premised on a perpetuation of the continued dominance of expensive private insurance.(As for Medicare, didn't this reform purposely avoid any expansion of access to other ages?

Medicaid is the equivalent of food stamps -- a necessary "safety net" -- but not any structural change to address the underlying reason so many can't afford care. Same for Community Health Clinics.

Yes those are wonderful programs. But they are byproducts of a system that denies affiordable real coverage to too many people and squeezes most of the rest.

}

[uponit7771]

17. Tripling CHC's is a bandaid?! Do you know what they are?

[Armstead]

19. Did you read my post? If not read it again

I said Community Health Centers are a wonderful thing and they deserve support.

But in the bigger picture, the NEED for them reflects badly on the current healthcare system, in which real healthcare coverage is denied to so many people because of the exorbitant private insurance rates.

[Hekate]

34. What? Afaik, Community Health Centers ARE "real healthcare coverage." That's the point.

If that goes through, healthcare access will be substantially expanded to those who could really use it.

My daughter and her family, for instance.

Hekate

[Armstead]

36. How about a coverage program that provides the same care everyione else gets?

To repeat, community health c enters are wionderful. But they exist to fill a hole that the current system creates.

[Greyhound]

68. Not to mention the 1/2 trillion they took away from Medicare to give to our masters. n/t

[uponit7771]

16. Not only that but Sanders is TRIPLING the number of CHC's!!! TRIPLING !!!

TRIPLING

[dkf]

54. And what percent does this tripling get us to? 0.5% of health care costs?

Puhleeze.

[paulk]

9. I don't see how, in the long run, any healthcare system that's

predicated on the notion that the gatekeepers to that system make their money denying access to that system, can get better to the point where any of it is worthwhile. If the goal is eventually single payer, which most of us would agree is the ultimate goal of a "better" system, then this legislation takes us down a path that leads away from that goal.

[Jakes Progress]

25. Well. You only feel that way because you think.

You gotta stop that if you want to be happy about this mess.

[mochajava666]

69. Exactly. This bill moves us away from the reform we need.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Were he President at the time, Obama would not have passed Medicare or Social Security

As he did on HCR, he would have deferred to oligarchs.

[MNDemNY]

18. so it would seem.

[Armstead]

20. BINGO

[dflprincess]

43. You got it.

[mochajava666]

71. Maybe, but perhaps he would have cared more about

Medicare or Social Security than he did about this Health Care Reform legislation. Maybe it was just me, but during the debates in the Primaries, I never felt his passion for HCR was as much as in the rest of the field. I thought he was more of a "Me, too" on this issue.

That is my hope anyway, because if he really cared about HCR, I'm going to feel sick about his lack of leadership toward cap and trade, immigration reform, the wars, banking reform, etc.

[zipplewrath]

3. So you wanted health insurance reform

Health insurance reform by the way that guarentees millions of new customers to the insurance companies and oh, by the by, prevents the government from negotiating with the drug companies for lower costs. And you wanted to prevent women from being able to have their reproductive health needs insured? But you're fine with the fact that there is little if any cost control of health CARE in this bill. That's what you wanted when all of this started?

[tblue]

12. Hey, if prosense wants to celebrate, let him/her.

Somebody around here should be happy cuz I sure as hell am not.

The news is all depressing today. I got a sore shoulder and a sprained ankle and I have to go wait in line at the DMV. I need chocolate. Something.

[MNDemNY]

8. What it represents is:

an affirmation of the for-profit-employment based health care system that has been proven not to work, and a huge power give-away to the Insurance Industry. It also represents the fact that this administration is willing to toss aside the progressive base that got it elected. We all know that Obama can do no wrong on your eyes, your numerous cut-n-pastes show that to be true. So you must have some other agenda if you will say that this weak, limp-dicked bill is "change" that you voted for.

[uponit7771]

14. My expectation was that we get POINTED in the direction of change and that has happened

[unc70]

30. Only OK if you don't care about the direction of the change

The current process feels like being blindfolded, spun around, made to walk in various directions, then spun around again, then (still blindfolded) being told how wonderful those next big steps will be and how a change can be good for me.

I really prefer to chose my direction and see where I am going. All directions are not equal, change to the wrong direction can be fatal.

Maybe you have given in to the old SNL commercials for "Lowered Expectations", but I can't imagine how low they would need be in order to avoid being disappointed with this mess.

I never had very high expectations in the healthcare AKA health "insurance" reform, and those were dashed as soon as Obama set the parameters for discussion and his total lack of advocacy for any of the measures that would be effective as more than a marketing/campaign slogan. Even so, I am still surprised at just how bad the Senate bill has become. Amazed and dismayed. And mad as Hell!

I see little hope for improving things anywhere in this, mostly just clever phrasing distracting from what is really going on inside the bill. For example, nothing I can see would help with the problem of pre-existing conditions. Would a 60 yo cancer survivor be able to purchase health insurance at a reasonable cost (premiums, co-pays, deducts, etc.) that would actually provide benefits that most people would need?

The Medicare buyin was about the only useful proposal that was seriously(?) discussed, and addressed one part of the problem -- a very important one, particularly for me. Those who thought a possible cost of $800/month as too expensive are not dealing with the reality of personal or small group plans. An employer with a small group plan might have a premium of $2000 for each older employee, with large annual increases at renewal. If any employees have a serious condition, each renewal becomes huge; alternative plans offered at renewal for "cost savings" typically shift to the employees costs several times greater than any "savings"; no other insurance company would issue coverage without exclusions; and the current insurance company might use various techniques to justify canceling the policy (e.g. change date of bank draft for premium, requiring some bit of paperwork with the request buried within something innocent looking (or worse done paperless)).

It is insane that we spend roughly 1/3 of the healthcare spending processing/denying claims, sorting out thousands of options, wasting precious resources that otherwise are enough to include everyone -- Why? So that in the arbitrage, private insurance companies and private for-profit hospitals can make a "reasonable" percent profit margin primarily benefiting a few senior executives, a few percent of an enormous volume of transactions. Compare the profit margins for health insurance versus that for a supermarket chain. Or compare the percent insurance companies charge for administering plans ("skim") versus comparable rates for Medicare and Medicaid.

Keep believing in this so-called change. Just remember that change does not imply better, and is often much worse.

[depakid]

21. What change? It further empowers and entrenches the root causes of the problem

the inefficient and inhumane health insurance industry- which will now be wasting even more private and public money (and providers' time and money) that could otherwise be used to "produce health."

Worse, it creates incentives to move more and more people over time into high deductible, high copay junk insurance that they can't afford to use- and still leaves people-particularly those with chronic conditions, vulnerable to medical bankruptcy.

[ProSense]

22. This

change

[depakid]

23. Structurally- the adminstration and the Senate has screwed the nation for years down the line

though ironically- unsustainablity, waste and abuse inherent in this fragmented for profit system may be the very thing that leads to (or forces) responsible reform.

Equally ironically- it may end up that a Republican administration is the one to do it. Just as it took Democrats to eviscerate welfare and push NAFTA through.

[Jakes Progress]

26. Don't expect a reply from the paste queen. nt

[ProSense]

27. I'll reply to you though:

The other comment is an opinion, not fact. Your comment is idiotic.

[Jakes Progress]

28. I'm thrilled.

I thought I was on your ignore list.

Now a little lesson in words, meaning, and clarity. First you are lazy in your posting when your vaguely refer to "the other comment". In fact there are several comments in this thread. You might be referring to any post, but if you are referring to post 23, it does indeed have opinion. Let me explain how a forum like this works. People post opinions and other respond. As evidence, my post enumerated an opinion and you replied to it. So the premise of your first phrase indicating that because the post was opinion and therefore not a post that called for reply is the idiotic statement as well as inconsistent with your actions in replying to my post of opinion. The silly sentence seems to imply that one only replies to facts, not opinions, which is simply absurd. Although since your replied to my post, your logic would want to say that my post was - ta da - a fact. (You sort of messed up there.)

This brings us to the second sentence called my comment idiotic. Please use words more carefully. And idiotic comment would, by definition, be one that showed a complete lack of thought or common sense. Now you are within the laws of logic if you wish to disagree with my little half-witticism. But because I was referring to your using a pasted source of a pasted source to support a pasted post, it is just not logical to say that there was not thought or common sense in the post. You can call it any number of other things. And most welcome to. But idiotic is not the word that applies. You can say it was mean. You can say it wasn't all that funny. You can say that I'm picking on you. But you must look to a statement like the first sentence of your post where you contradict yourself with your own language to find an example of something written without thought or common sense.

On the concept of the OP. The HCR is not at all what the country wanted or needed. It may be all the president was capable of doing, but it what small good it does is deeply offset by the enormous increase in profits it promises to pharma and corporate insurance.

[ProSense]

29. More drivel n/t

[Jakes Progress]

33. Too much to take in? I understand.

Deadlines and such. Hard to actually think and write at your pace.

Fine though. Most of us get it.

[ProSense]

38. What is it about Drivel that you don't understand? n/t

[Jakes Progress]

39. I understand the meaning. You do not.

See. I can write short, pointless, meaningless retorts as well as you. Not as many, but done just as well.

[ProSense]

40. "I can write short, pointless, meaningless retorts" Agree. n/t

[Jakes Progress]

42. Can't even bother the read the post I see.

You can leave the quotes off your title. Then it would be accurate.

But no. You resort to your usual cherry picking of phrases. The whole phrase referred to being able to copy your inane style. But you have to leave out the words that make the point and misrepresent the quote. You seem to do that a lot.

This is fun.

[karynnj]

45. Actually,

to paraphrase Senator Benson, "I know Prosense and she is a friend of mine, you are no Prosense." Her posts are intelligence and based on real facts and information, your parodies contain sheer nonsense.

[Jakes Progress]

50. I truly appreciate your acknowledgment

that I am not like your friend. That is the gist of what I have been saying. I can pretend to have no brain of my own and pretend that a short, declarative statement makes me seem smart, but I know better. I'm so glad that you saw the humor in my pretending to be a WH press agent.

Oh, and I love the Freudian slip in your spelling. It is very telling.

Just because she pastes stuff from somewhere else doesn't make it "real facts". You need to know that just because something is on the internets doesn't necessarily make it true. The internets is a big old place. There are lots and lots of words there. It really doesn't make me "intelligence" if I simply find somewhere that someone has said something that agrees with me and post it as some sort of "Get Out of Thinking" card. Do you seriously doubt that I could find any number of "real facts and information" on the net that would seem to the feeble minded to be sacred proof of my point? Golly. That is so naive.

What is telling is the way the points she is trying to prove shift over time depending on what is coming out of the WH. Take for instance her principled stand against single payer when the administration was peddling the meme that the public option was a better alternative. Then the shift to how wise it is to give up the public option which coincided with the administration's abandonment of that position. Then she blasts one source (Krugman comes to mind) only to paste from the same source when it suits. Consistency just gets in the way of the joy.

And just what is is with you and she using words when you don't know what they mean? Look up "parody" and "nonsense" to find your own errors. I'm tired of trying to teach those who won't learn.

[ProSense]

52. "Just because she pastes stuff from somewhere else doesn't make it 'real facts'."

You do realize the OP was my opinion, right?

Your protest seems to indicate you harbor some bitterness.

"Take for instance her principled stand against single payer when the administration was peddling the meme that the public option was a better alternative."

Um, what the hell are you talking about?

:rofl:

[Jakes Progress]

58. If you don't mind saying that you never said anything

bad about single payer, then I can't stop you. You live with yourself. My posting a reply to another person about your use of pasting and sources does not indicate bitterness. Amusement, perhaps. Maybe, bemusement. Just how does this indicate bitterness? And how is it a "protest". Golly. Definitions and usage don't seem to be your friend tonight.

You do realize that I was referring to your self paste of a previous paste fit. You know. The post that started this sub-thread. Please try to keep up with your own threads.

I always know when someone has reached the end of their rhetorical rope when they resort to the rolling smilie. (Oh, I get it. You can paste those.)

Look. I get your point of view. Do I have it right that you either see no error or misstep by the administration at all -- ever -- none and you agree 100% with every decision and action before and since the inauguration? Or do you just believe that it is not right to ever, ever, ever disagree with the administration? I just don't happen to agree with either of those positions.

I would be willing to be that I spent at least as much unpaid time working to get Obama elected as you, but then I'm retired and had many hours a week to donate. My position is that I helped him get elected and that I want him reelected and that many of the decisions and actions that have been coming from he and his advisors are political missteps that will lead to a one-term service. In addition we are squandering the best opportunity the country has had in decades to make any substantive progressive movement and to help roll back the tide of neocon control that the last 8 years gave us.

So you go ahead and roll on the floor and laugh. I can only assume you are well off, insured, and sheltered from the hell that bush gave us. So much so that you don't mind it hanging on.

[ProSense]

59. Single payer couldn't pass.

Deal with it.

If you don't like the information being posted, well, tough. You have a choice: discuss it, ignore it or continue obsessing over irrelevant points with silly comments like this: "You do realize that I was referring to your self paste of a previous paste fit."

[Jakes Progress]

63. Not without strong presidential support.

It seemed to be dead to the administration before it started, probably a part of the pharma back room deal.

You can post anything you like. You can call your opinion information if you like. As far as obsessing, you have now wandered about six subthreads deep into such irrelevancy. Heal yourself first.

I have no doubt that you find my comment silly since it again catches you out on the problem you have with following what is going on in your own threads. I will walk you through it. You complained that I pointed out your predilection for pasting both from sources and then from your own pasted posts. You can't complain that the wording is difficult to follow since you are the one who does these odd things. What you you call a post that pastes a link to a post by the poster that only links to a post where the poster pasted from another source. Sure it's a strained sentence, but there is no other way to describe your unique and self-congratulatory posting habits.

Again. Go ahead and enjoy yourself. I hope you find it profitable. You have a small coterie of followers here who don't mind not thinking deeply as long as it makes them feel good. But you surely can't complain if some of us do go beyond that.

Have a happy and productive new year. Hang around and swat this around if you like, but don't let it keep you from your job.

[depakid]

35. "The HCR is not at all what the country wanted or needed."

It's also not remotely similar to what the OP posted furiously about from spring to fall, when she was belittling single payer and fiercely advocating the public option!

[Jakes Progress]

41. You can't expect bulk posting and consistent thought. nt

[karynnj]

44. How did your post "my post enumerated an opinion"?

Did you assign it a count? The post referred to was obvious, even to you, given the rest of her response. So, while it was vague, it was also obvious.

It is amazing who many words you use here to try to say something - without succeeding.

[Jakes Progress]

56. "Who many words" did you need?

Yep. I mistyped.

That's it. That's all you got.

With my last paragraph damning your group's whole raison d'etre, that's what you complain about. This from someone who says that something is vague but obvious. But then logic doesn't seem to be important to you. Hence the reason you don't get what is being said. All those words and all and not a single paste. Gotta be confusing.

[Lilith Velkor]

48. This is the 3rd time I've seen "That's just, like, your OPINION, man" used as an argument.

Your faction is really getting desperate, isn't it?

[Hippo_Tron]

61. The Republicans never controlled Congress until Clinton, though

Reagan would've eviscerated Welfare and probably Medicare while he was at it but it didn't stand a chance with Democrats still in charge of the House of Representatives. NAFTA hadn't been negotiated during Reagan's tenure but I imagine it would have had a good shot of passing if it had.

[unc70]

31. Your talking points are pure BS. Devil in the details.

I don't have access to the kind of drugs that I would need to start believing this stuff.

I earlier posted about the sham of the "pre-existing conditions" stuff, annual caps give the effect of lifetime caps, and on and on.

Yes, it is great to be for encouraging some things like best-practices, team approaches everywhere and not just to the places I have access, preventitive care (needs better definitions), but that is mostly window dressing. It makes a good cover story.

BTW your sig line is a nice myth to tell young children, but it has little relationship to the actual history of this country and its people.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

24. Have an incremental day!! n/t

.

[TheKentuckian]

53. Incremental in the wrong direction

A baby stepping moonwalk. I could get behind some incremental progress not sinking into the quicksand to the sound of applause and backslapping.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

60. to be clear, I'm on your side on this one, K

my response was a little tongue-in-cheek to the OP.

[TheKentuckian]

64. Sorry, I know. I wuz jus sayin'

[saracat]

32. On the job again. I m sure they will credit themselves warrented or not without you. it is all PR..

[brentspeak]

37. Yeah, real "reform" -- a gun to everybody's heads to purchase an unaffordable and useless product

[PurityOfEssence]

46. Yep, and "representing" is all that matters, right?

It's a mess. It'll help some and hurt some, but it'll perpetuate a wasteful and parasitic money-frenzy and do so at the expense of peoples' lives. The only thing that was really saved here was the insurance industry.

[Colobo]

47. I'm with you 100%.

[WT Fuheck]

51. small minds think alike.

[ProSense]

55. You're right. I remember when

you changed a significant portion of American life.

[WT Fuheck]

57. you must be pretty old then.

[Milo_Bloom]

66. Yep, real change!

First time in history the government has mandated you to buy a product over which there are no real cost controls, no real oversight and no real quality controls.

Wonder what snake oil they will require us to buy next?

[Jokerman]

67. Change for the worse. n/t

[vaberella]

70. Well I K/Red this. n/t

[totodeinhere]

72. I see that this thread is in negative recommendation territory where it belongs.

You can't fool all of us all the time. Forcing us to buy insurance that we can't afford is not change for the better. Subsidies you say? There will be so much daunting red tape involved in trying to get subsidies that a lot of people won't even bother to try. But of course that's what the corporate interests want.

Edited for typo.

[avaistheone1]

73. This is the a welcome change for Americans like NAFTA was a welcome change for us.

Democrats were the instrumental force in bringing NAFTA into place, and now we have health reform from our Dems, missing the reform.

The reform bill is not reform and is going to blow up in the Democrats faces. The bill without a public option is an historic wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to big health insurance corporations. I think it absolutely stinks to high heavens and the Dems will be severely punished for it.

[freddie mertz]

74. How exciting this must be for you.

ttp://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html

[johan helge]

75. Well said, recommended

This text by Paul Krugman is also well said (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=2):

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.

But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.

(..)

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically.

(..)

Bear in mind also the lessons of history: social insurance programs tend to start out highly imperfect and incomplete, but get better and more comprehensive as the years go by. Thus Social Security originally had huge gaps in coverage — and a majority of African-Americans, in particular, fell through those gaps. But it was improved over time, and it’s now the bedrock of retirement stability for the vast majority of Americans.

(..)

Whereas flawed social insurance programs have tended to get better over time, the story of health reform suggests that rejecting an imperfect deal in the hope of eventually getting something better is a recipe for getting nothing at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, America would be in much better shape today if Democrats had cut a deal on health care with Richard Nixon, or if Bill Clinton had cut a deal with moderate Republicans back when they still existed.

[TheKentuckian]

76. What you and Krugman are pitching would be more plausible IF

there were structures that would be beneficial to build off of and expand but unfortunately the senate bill is a complete nightmare that will require every bit as much reform as the status quo.
Entrenching state pools is foolish and something that will have to be completely undone.

The funding structure designed to squeeze savings by creating clear incentive to reduce benefits and shift costs to the consumer is nothing to work with.

Regulations designed to avoid interference with these companies running their affairs as they see fit and with the continuation of an anti-trust exemption aren't something you can build a regulatory and oversight system with.

Continuing the employer based insurance is a nightmare in the context of the other huge flaws we have in our broader system.

I'm not getting how folks are comparing this plan to past social reforms other than it is touted as a social reform. Much of the hubbub is exactly because the "little starter house" is being built on a sadly tight lot with lots of obstuctions and on quicksand. Never mind it isn't even a proper house that a reasonable person would give a moment's thought to expanding.

Yall and Paul need to really think about how past reforms didn't require drastic wholesale and directional changes but rather expansion of eligibility and the addition of programs.

I was able to support the House bill (minus Stupek) because it did lay down some basic foundations that could be succesfully expanded on and in fact had substantial planned expansion. This isn't just a situation of adding a public option down the line but rather in the basic way the bill is structured to work. I've asked but I've not seen a soul from wonk to the most underinformed with a keyboard explain what it is in how this bill works that is good. Its all about the supposed what it does and fuck how, when, who, and how much.

[johan helge]

77. If I were you

I would remove most of the characterizations (e.g. "Much of the hubbub is exactly because the "little starter house" is being built on a sadly tight lot with lots of obstuctions and on quicksand"), because they tell the reader little or nothing. It's better to use the space on examples etc.

What does the bill do?

Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugman.html):

"At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.

All of this would be paid for in large part with the first serious effort ever to rein in rising health care costs.

The result would be a huge increase in the availability and affordability of health insurance, with more than 30 million Americans gaining coverage, and premiums for lower-income and lower-middle-income Americans falling dramatically. That’s an immense change from where we were just a few years ago: remember, not long ago the Bush administration and its allies in Congress successfully blocked even a modest expansion of health care for children."

This Krugman post about this is funny: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/what-has-health-care-reform-ever-done-for-us/ .