It's Official - Reconciliation It Is (1 Viewer)

[dtc]

Uh, you've run right into the ditch with this rhetoric. The first group that Obama paid off (co-opted into the plan) were the insurance companies. To hear you talk of the evil Republicans fighting for the benefit of the insurance companies is laughable. And regarding the "rich"...it's not a "rich" versus "poor" issue. It's a Team Democrat "Rich" Group versus the Team Republican "Rich" Group. To the victor go the spoils, that's the Chicago Way. But please don't try to paint this as the virtuous Democrats versus the evil Republicans. That's laughable.


As I said above, the White House put the insurance companies in their pocket as the first order of business.

There is a difference between keeping your enemies close and actually fighting their fights.

 

[dtc]

I agree something needs to be done. I just don't think this will help all that much. The real problem is the cost. Fix the cost issues and it would be more affordable thus allowing more people access. Of course this would make doctors unhappy because it would cut into their salaries, so the politicians realize the only way to get the AMA to sign off on this is to choose the other option. Stick it to the people by forcing everyone to buy a bad product. The whole damn model needs to be blown up and rebooted. Wellness/preventive incentives and rewards for healthy living need to be paramount to reduce long term costs.

We need to get out of this mindset that we can do whatever we want without consequences to our long term health. Go along, do whatever you like and we have a pill to fix whatever your problems that may arise. It just is not working, well unless you are a stockholder for GSK or Pfizer, then its working just fine.

My fear is that this thing will pass. We all are forced to buy insurance, no one can be excluded because of previous conditions. Sounds great until you are thrown in a pool for those with a "condition" and your premium goes through the roof.

I have not read the entire bill but can anyone tell me what happens if you make more than the cut off for a subsidy but you fall in a high risk pool that would otherwise have not been able to find coverage. What is to stop the premium from being insanely high? I am hoping there is language that addresses this issue in the bill.

What about "special" treatments that are enormously expensive for cancer patients. Will the insurance companies be forced to pay for these treatments? Who decides who gets what care?

You can't fix the cost problem without killing the beast that is insurance. Killing the profits being made by companies acting as death panels is first. If that's not enough, then the other folks profiting off of the suffering of Americans will be next. Don't get me wrong and think I want doctors to wear beige scrubs of hospitals to look like Gulags, but to fix this problem it may be necessary for doctors, hospitals, drug companies and others to actually suffer through lower wages.

That's what happens when there is a fundamental shift in a market just like blacksmiths and coopers. Sorry.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Here comes the "Slaughter Solution"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503742_pf.html

So the plan is now to amend a law hasnt been passed by passing another bill without a vote. All to give lawmakers a fig leaf they can hide behind to say they didnt vote for it.

Political sausage-making is rarely pretty, but we're entering some pretty rare air here.

 

[daybreaker]

i dont understand the whole bipartisan thing here. Nobody agrees with anybody. And they never will. At the little health-care summit the Dems basically said "here is what we are doing." To which the Reps replied "we dont like it." To which the Dems retorted "Too bad, we had hoped you would be 'bipartisan.'"

Were you not paying attention for the past year? The healthcare bill didnt just get started with the summit. Going all the way back to last summer, Republicans refused to give any input on it. They waited until like December to even mention what their ideas were (which were then scored by the CBO as adding to the deficit as well). Instead they spent 7 months crying, whining, and fighting it, never offering any alternative.

It was just like their plan for economic recovery. They were extremely vocal opposing the Democrat's plan, and when they announced their "plan" It was one page with a picture, and no specifics of *anything*.

They are not interested in bipartisanship- they are only interested in getting back into power. They have had SEVERAL chances to give feedback on this bill, and, in fact, a LOT of the bill's original proposals were dropped to try and get Republican votes (just like several proposals in the stimulus bill were dropped to try and get Republican votes, which they then went back on and all voted 'no')

Have you been paying attention to anything at all?

 

[daybreaker]

But someone still needs to explain to me how this bill, which is so unpopular with so many Americans, and is being passed through a controversial method, is not going to lead to a serious Democratic defeat in the mid-term elections.

I know I already replied to this, but here's even more proof for you:

"Oh nos! The bill is soooper unpopular!!!"

Oh wait, that's just Rassmusen. Let's look at EVERY SINGLE OTHER POLL:

Wow. Looks to me like ever since they started talking about finally passing the bill, even with reconciliation, the bill has been GAINING in popularity!

Crazy!

But that would mean some people just didnt like it because its been dragging on for so long, and that now that it might get passed, theyre starting to favor it again...

But Fox News told me EVERYONE HATES IT! Gee. What a conundrum... believe Rassmusen and Fox News, who obviously have no agenda.... or believe EVERY OTHER POLL OUT THERE....

What a tough choice...

 

[champ76]

Were you not paying attention for the past year? The healthcare bill didnt just get started with the summit. Going all the way back to last summer, Republicans refused to give any input on it. They waited until like December to even mention what their ideas were (which were then scored by the CBO as adding to the deficit as well). Instead they spent 7 months crying, whining, and fighting it, never offering any alternative.

It was just like their plan for economic recovery. They were extremely vocal opposing the Democrat's plan, and when they announced their "plan" It was one page with a picture, and no specifics of *anything*.

They are not interested in bipartisanship- they are only interested in getting back into power. They have had SEVERAL chances to give feedback on this bill, and, in fact, a LOT of the bill's original proposals were dropped to try and get Republican votes (just like several proposals in the stimulus bill were dropped to try and get Republican votes, which they then went back on and all voted 'no')

Have you been paying attention to anything at all?

I think the real question is, have you been paying attention to anything at all?

"Republicans in Congress are slated to unveil their health care reform plan on Wednesday, a proposal that relies heavily on private mechanisms, contains no individual mandate, and offers tax incentives for families and individuals to help pay for coverage.

Titled "The Patients' Choice Act of 2009," the plan will be introduced by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) and U.S. Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) at 11 a.m. The focus of the proposal -- an advanced copy of which was obtained by the Huffington Post -- is to push for a "guaranteed choice of coverage" in the private market through federal-state partnerships know as State Health Insurance Exchanges."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/republican-health-care-pl_n_205728.html


"(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress -- while pushing their own health care overhauls -- have criticized Republicans as offering only opposition and no ideas for reform, but the GOP, despite the lack of media attention, has introduced three health care bills.

The three Republican bills total almost 400 pages and have been on the table since May and June.

In May, Republicans in the House and the Senate formed a bicameral coalition to produce the130-page “Patients Choice Act of 2009.”

In June, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced the “Health Care Freedom Plan,” a 41-page proposal.

And in July, the Republican Study Committee, under the leadership of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), unveiled the “Empowering Patients First Act,” a 130-page plan."
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/52896

November 05, 2009|Janet Hook
WASHINGTON — After months of criticizing Democratic healthcare proposals from the sidelines, House Republicans this week stepped up efforts to promote their own plan and challenge critics' efforts to portray the GOP as the "party of no."

The GOP bill is an amalgam of market-oriented measures that would limit medical malpractice lawsuits, expand the use of tax-sheltered medical savings accounts, let people shop for insurance outside of their own states, and make it easier for small businesses and hard-to-insure people to get coverage. The ideas reflect conservatives' suspicion of sweeping new programs, federal spending and additional regulation."
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/05/nation/na-health-gop5

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s1324is.txt.pdf

"Washington (CNN) -- President Obama extended a bipartisan olive branch to GOP leaders in the health care debate Tuesday, stating in a letter that he is willing to consider several of their ideas in a compromise plan.

Specifically, the president said he may be willing to:

• Commit $50 million to fund state initiatives designed to reduce medical malpractice costs

• Allow undercover investigations of health care providers receiving Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs

• Boost Medicaid reimbursements to doctors in certain states

• Include language in the final bill ensuring certain high-deductible health plans can be offered in the health exchange

The president said his decision to consider the GOP ideas was a result of last week's health care summit."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/02/health.care/index.html

Of course, the President later reneged and called for an "up or down vote" on the Senate plan.

To allege the Rupublicans have been disengaged from the debate simply to carp at the President's plan is just plain garbage.

 

[Galbreath34]

From your first link:

The Patients' Choice Act of 2009 effectively ends tax breaks for employers who provide health coverage to their workers, choosing instead to give a $5,710 tax cut to families and a $2,290 cut to individuals to help them pay for health insurance coverage. Critics insist that this system would end up costing both business and consumers more over the long term. And some objective analysts have agreed. After all, families are currently paying approximately $12,300 a year for health care today.

Wow, completely take away incentives for my employer to provide insurance and give me far less than a year's premium as a tax deduction. So I'm left paying for all of my medical insurance and get the benefit of paying 35% less taxes on it. In general that means my employer stops paying 50% and I get less than 25% of the money back indirectly. Woo hoo, where do I sign up for this serious reform!


(BTW, my position is the Republicans have been involved in getting the legislation changed so far, not that they've been on the sidelines.)

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I disagree. The bill got CHOPPED UP well before Scott Brown won the seat in Massachusetts. They tossed the public option, amongst other liberal holy grails, because they couldn't get Democratic support even when they had a super majority. They didn't add any conservative ideas. They did, however, move more to the center left trying to gain Democratic votes.

That BS. There are over 100 amendments added to the Senate and House bills that were specifically republican ideas.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I think the real question is, have you been paying attention to anything at all?

"Republicans in Congress are slated to unveil their health care reform plan on Wednesday, a proposal that relies heavily on private mechanisms, contains no individual mandate, and offers tax incentives for families and individuals to help pay for coverage.

Titled "The Patients' Choice Act of 2009," the plan will be introduced by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) and U.S. Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) at 11 a.m. The focus of the proposal -- an advanced copy of which was obtained by the Huffington Post -- is to push for a "guaranteed choice of coverage" in the private market through federal-state partnerships know as State Health Insurance Exchanges."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/republican-health-care-pl_n_205728.html


"(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress -- while pushing their own health care overhauls -- have criticized Republicans as offering only opposition and no ideas for reform, but the GOP, despite the lack of media attention, has introduced three health care bills.

The three Republican bills total almost 400 pages and have been on the table since May and June.

In May, Republicans in the House and the Senate formed a bicameral coalition to produce the130-page “Patients Choice Act of 2009.”

In June, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced the “Health Care Freedom Plan,” a 41-page proposal.

And in July, the Republican Study Committee, under the leadership of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), unveiled the “Empowering Patients First Act,” a 130-page plan."
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/52896

November 05, 2009|Janet Hook
WASHINGTON — After months of criticizing Democratic healthcare proposals from the sidelines, House Republicans this week stepped up efforts to promote their own plan and challenge critics' efforts to portray the GOP as the "party of no."

The GOP bill is an amalgam of market-oriented measures that would limit medical malpractice lawsuits, expand the use of tax-sheltered medical savings accounts, let people shop for insurance outside of their own states, and make it easier for small businesses and hard-to-insure people to get coverage. The ideas reflect conservatives' suspicion of sweeping new programs, federal spending and additional regulation."
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/05/nation/na-health-gop5

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s1324is.txt.pdf

"Washington (CNN) -- President Obama extended a bipartisan olive branch to GOP leaders in the health care debate Tuesday, stating in a letter that he is willing to consider several of their ideas in a compromise plan.

Specifically, the president said he may be willing to:

• Commit $50 million to fund state initiatives designed to reduce medical malpractice costs

• Allow undercover investigations of health care providers receiving Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs

• Boost Medicaid reimbursements to doctors in certain states

• Include language in the final bill ensuring certain high-deductible health plans can be offered in the health exchange

The president said his decision to consider the GOP ideas was a result of last week's health care summit."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/02/health.care/index.html

Of course, the President later reneged and called for an "up or down vote" on the Senate plan.

To allege the Rupublicans have been disengaged from the debate simply to carp at the President's plan is just plain garbage.

Yeah i remember that :

Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that ...17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.
But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.

This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It's one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It's another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren't even totally sure how to play the game. The Democratic plan isn't perfect, but in comparison, it's looking astonishingly good.

​

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/congressional_budget_office_th.html
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10705/hr3962amendmentBoehner.pdf

 

[BIG E]

Oh wait, that's just Rassmusen. Let's look at EVERY SINGLE OTHER POLL:

Wow. Looks to me like ever since they started talking about finally passing the bill, even with reconciliation, the bill has been GAINING in popularity!

Crazy!

But that would mean some people just didnt like it because its been dragging on for so long, and that now that it might get passed, theyre starting to favor it again...

But Fox News told me EVERYONE HATES IT! Gee. What a conundrum... believe Rassmusen and Fox News, who obviously have no agenda.... or believe EVERY OTHER POLL OUT THERE....

What a tough choice...

That says internet polls only. You didn't think we would catch that did you.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/scripts/javascript/loess.js"></script><object width="450" height="346"><param name="chart" value="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/flash/swfs/chart.swf?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/HealthCare.xml&choices=Oppose,Favor&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=&trends=&lines=&colors=Favor-000000,Oppose-BF0014,Undecided-A69A37,No Opinion-68228B&e=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/flash/swfs/chart.swf?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/HealthCare.xml&choices=Oppose,Favor&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=&trends=&lines=&colors=Favor-000000,Oppose-BF0014,Undecided-A69A37,No Opinion-68228B&e=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="false" allowScriptAccess="always" width="450" height="346"></embed></object>

 

[JRead2]

At the risk of sending the Republicans into overdrive...

I agree, it's not the real answer, and I doubt we'd get a real answer if we had 95% one party in control of both houses and the White House...

If we had 95% one party in control of both houses and the White House, we would REALLY be screwed. It doesn't matter which party it is.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

That says internet polls only. You didn't think we would catch that did you.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/scripts/javascript/loess.js"></script><object height="346" width="450">


<embed src="http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/flash/swfs/chart.swf?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/HealthCare.xml&choices=Oppose,Favor&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=&trends=&lines=&colors=Favor-000000,Oppose-BF0014,Undecided-A69A37,No%20Opinion-68228B&e=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="always" height="346" width="450"></object>

That still shows a favorable trend and still highlights how Rasmussen clearly has a republican slant to their polls. They have long been shown to have a Republican favorable lean and have been called out many times for framing their polling questions in a misleading manner or in a way favorable to republicans. IE:

From Five Thirty Eight.com (the guy who used statistics to predict the world series and predicted the election down to a tee)

But there are other respects in which I'm much less sympathetic to Rasmussen's case. In particular, this has to do with their choices of question wording and subject matter. The Politico question, for instance, points toward an August question in which Rasmussen asked "It&#8217;s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.&#8221; That is not a question designed to elicit the most accurate reflection of public opinion.

Likewise, Rasmussen recently produced a poll in which they purported to describe the Democratic health care plan to their respondents. Several other pollsters have found that support for the plan increases when it is actually described to respondents, but Rasmussen showed no such increase. However, the second sentence in their description reads: <b>

The plans before Congress would prohibit people from choosing insurance plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles.​

I don't particularly know where this comes from; Rasmussen claims that its questions came from a 'summary of the legislation provided by the New York Times', but such a depiction of the health care policy appears nowhere in the New York Times article. But there it is in the Rasmussen survey, where it appears to be designed to build a relationship in the respondent's mind between the Democratic plan and higher premiums.</b>​

I'm not saying that Rasmussen's question wording is always biased. It isn't. And I'm sure you could find a couple of cases where the wording tend to portray the liberal argument more favorably. But cases like these happen consistently enough with Rasmussen that I'd say it's a concern. And when they do use unorthodox question wording, nine times out of ten it favors the conservative argument. I would describe this as a form of bias -- although it should generally implicate only the poll in question, and not their overall enterprise. In other words, if Rasmussen uses some misleading wording in a health care poll, that means I'm not likely to take that health care poll very seriously -- but it doesn't particularly mean that you should throw out their presidential approval polling, or their Arkansas polling, or their polling on gay marriage, or whatever. Yes, this does mean a bit of extra work -- we have to scrutinize each particular poll for potentially misleading wording -- but that's something that we should be doing more of anyway.

I also have some questions about Rasmussen's choice of subject matter. In particular, they have a knack for issuing polls at times which tend to dovetail with conservative media narratives. Rasmussen, for instance, recently decided to issue a poll about Ben Nelson's standing in Nebraska in light of his vote for health care, which is unpopular in the state. But did they issue a similar poll for Joe Lieberman, who until recently looked like he might vote against the health care bill -- and who opposed the public option, a policy which is very popular in Connecticut? No. They did poll Connecticut in December, but they asked only about Chris Dodd, and not Lieberman. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with polling on Ben Nelson -- or with not polling on Joe Lieberman, who gets polled frequently by home-state pollster Quinnipiac. But if you see this sort of pattern consistently, then it may reflect a certain kind of bias.​

 

[daybreaker]

That says internet polls only. You didn't think we would catch that did you.

I expected you to know how commas work. Did you see all those words before "internet polls only"? See, the commas join together clauses. So the "only" applies to all three types of polls.

Go here: http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php
Click on "Tools"
Click on "Filter"
Hover over "IVR- Automated Phone"
De-select "Rassmusen"

Wow! Thats the exact poll I posted!

 

[Cam71090]

If you fundamentally oppose something, giving little recommendations and changes here or there is a waste of time.

 

[Galbreath34]

So you fundamentally oppose the idea that there's a health care crisis?

If you meant instead that you fundamentally oppose the basis for the solution, shouldn't you present a coherent solution that fully addresses the nature and scope of the problem at least as well as that you oppose? The fact that there was no action taken at all in the area in the last 8 years shows that the nature of the Republican position on health care is that there is no crisis at all beyond the need for tort reform.