Hooray! Zero Deficit!

[No Elephants]

"If we had a health-care system that was as efficient as some of the European systems, we’d have no deficit. "

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winning economist.



Let's see that again.



"If we had a health-care system that was as efficient as some of the European systems, we’d have no deficit."



That is all.

[Enthusiast]

1. This is what makes me so F'n mad.

We have all these existing and highly efficient single payer models to study. We know each and every one is far cheaper and more effective than the existing U.S. hodgepodge. But when the health care reform debate came up we had to use weasel words and pretend that single payer was a bridge too far, like it was some wild eyed commie idea. But it was only a wild eyed commie idea for the ones with their brain tissue being massaged by the health care profiteers. We aren't even supposed to know that we could have adopted any number of systems and seen an immediate improvement in everything except the bottom line. This knowledge is verboten.

Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, I have seen the health care/insurance industry close up. It ain't pretty.

On issue after issue, the nation's progress is being constrained by powerful corporate actors. I cannot understand a politician with any sense of morality fostering this condition. Are these politicians ideologically bent toward corporate control? I can't imagine such a guiding principle. So it leaves me with one possible explanation. They are just crooks, lowly criminals willing to betray the nation for their own gain.

In an ideal situation we would have a choice of presidential candidates that included brilliant minds like Joseph Stiglitz and others.

[No Elephants]

2. this is a nitpick, but

Obama eliminated single payer during his campaign, saying it would not work in the U.S. because we already had all "these other things" already in place.

It was not so much that he affirmatively ran on "no single payer" as that was something he said when asked about it.

I never heard him specify what the other things were, but another poster said every country that went single payer had other things in place and still another said Obama had been referring to employer plans. (I expect many of the employer plans will vanish of their own accord after obamacare goes into full effect, anyway.)

Of course, when Obama ran for the Illinois legislature as a liberal, he was for single payer.

Then, too, Daschle, who began lobbying for the health industry before the law allowed him to do so, played a large role in Obama's 2008 campaign. In addition, according to Daschle, he had been among those who had urged Obama to run in the first place.

Daschle claimed Obama was concerned it was too soon for him.

Supposedly, Daschle said that running before anyone had much of a record to hold against you could be an advantage and that his (Daschle's) own record had been a problem for Daschle when he had run for President. (Avoiding much of a record seems to have been Obama's strategy in the Illinois anyway, so I am not sure I believe Daschle entirely.)

Daschle claims he said to Obama, "This could be your moment. I missed my moment. Don't miss your moment." or words to that effect.

Sure, why should voters have any kind of solid indication of what a Presidential nominee would actually be like if elected? Let's just elect the candidate with the nicest smile (and the best concealment) every four to eight years. Hell, even George Washington had to run on his record. (Though, supposedly, Washington did not want the job. *wink*)

Anyhoo.....Obama did tell us during the campaign that he thought that single payer was impractical for Amurrika. However, he did, as we well know, affirmatively run on a strong public option as the only way to make health reform work.

After his election, though, he started working with Big Health, Big Insurance and Big Phrma. And by the town meetings that summer, he was speaking and behaving as though members of the left were unreasonable children to still want a public option, what with the health insurer-written bill already being with Baucus's committee and all, as Collins hacked it up even further. And, even though she voted it against it after making it even better for Republicans, her changes passed by reconciliation, along with Obama's final changes. (I don't have the patience to go through 1000 pages numerous times to see what changes got made at each stage, but the industry must have collectively wet itself with joy over a program so much better than the one they wrote themselves to start with.)

:banghead:

I have seen the health insurance industry up close, too, but I have had single payer since I was a newlywed, thanks to my husband's being an employee of Massachusetts. Well before Romney, Massachusetts decided to self-insure its employees. I don't know how long it's been.

At first, they used to ask us to let them know if we had any problem with the bill. Now, they tell us to take up any problem with the medical care provider.

Imagine! If the state is billed for a service you never got, they no longer want to hear about it from the insureds. Maybe they got too many false alarm reports?

:shrug:

AnywayI can't say it's been perfect for me, but I can say it's been wonderful for me.

BTW, medical costs are still the largest single cause of personal bankruptcy and most of those filing for bankruptcy because of medical costs were the proud owners of health insurance when they incurred the costs. I am sure Obama knew this. Among many other reasons he had to know it, middle class bankruptcy was one of Elizabeth Warren's area of study.