I thought lambert was kidding about that.

This is going to be a clusterfuck for the Democratic Party and deservedly so. They promised people - people who are sick, dying or scared of being sick, dying - that they were going to help them. Instead, they are going to help insurance companies. Maybe a few people will be helped around the edges, but THAT doesn't even kick in for four years. Tell the parents whose kid has cancer that they'll get help in four years. That's a political winner.

Thank the goddess for Medicare because so long as it exists, we can point to something people are familiar with and that works that is a government program. Of course, I fully expect the FKD to fuck that up, too.

So, they're going to pay for more people to get on Medicaid by cutting back on the money for people already on Medicaid. Nice. I mean, Fuck the poor, we're Democrats. And we all know about those greedy poor people -- driving to the clinic in their Cadillacs and using too much medical care...

is restricted; it's like having a public transportation system, but not being allowed to use it if you have a car. Ridiculous.

Love the timing of the implementation - 2013 - how good could a plan be if it's going to take four freakin' years to get it going? And if it's not going to take that long to implement, what they're designing is a plan that chooses politics - making sure this crappy plan won't get in the way of anyone's re-election chances - over the people who need health CARE. Nice.

What happens in the meantime? How badly are insurance companies going to screw us between now and then?

Can we just kill Obamacare now?

Looks like it's taken from the Social Security ombudsman langauge. I don't see anything about conflict resolution, which is a central function of the ombudsman; but I also don't know anything about how the SS ombudsman has worked out in practice. Readers?

moot? In other words, too late to matter? But will give him reelection cover?

Damn, I'm feeling cynical.

Partly bcz the limitations on physician choice is really impacting my health and well-being. I have only 18 months to go before I'm Medicare eligible, so I won't benefit that much from achieveing single payer. Of course, Medicare, Medicaid would be better off as part of a single payer approach, but, as of now, the Johnson programs are still there, Medicaid weakened but still there. And if Medicare is weakened, at least I'll be able to choose my doctors in a year and a half. (Unless Obama and the Dems manage to really screw up Medicare....)

But, I don't want others to go through what I and so many have gone through concerning Big Insurers' parasitic plans The insecutity, the myriad little and big ways of denying people care, even getting them to self-deny due to cost and hassle. I had hope, even Hope, for real change. But, Mr. Hope and Change is not that much about helping the little people. Heh. Instead of "for All, Everybody In, Nobody " we get Everybody Except the Uberwealthy under the bus.

We're (almost) all Unterbussen now.

care dollars, but the figures from Wendell Potter are in the 80-85% for medical loss for the insurers.

My understanding is that the 70-71% figure includes the additional costs borne by health care providers due to increased paperwork, added personnel to deal with all the varying insurance plans, etc. Thus, there isn't any discrepancy in these facts. (BTW, the Big Insurance rep at the OFA meeting I attended used a 14-15% figure, and spoke of it with pride. She was asked about the 70-71% figures and danced around before going back to the industry line.)

Am I accurate? I would imagine people not dealing with the nitty gritty might find this confusing, and our opponents thrive on confusion to create fear and doubt about any real changes such as single payer.

flu epidemic, eh?.

Fookin' brilliant, Dems.

Oh, and will enable better spread of that drug-resistant TB. Whoohoo!

Intersting that at the turn of the last century, public health was gaining ground; in this new Finance Century, losing ground to the for-profit insurance industry.

We are so fucked. And by the FKD Party!!!

notes via a post by Dr. Dan McCanne about a Seattle Times article on increases in Washington state:

In what is becoming an annual ordeal for policyholders, Regence BlueShield is raising premiums for 135,000 individual health-plan members in Washington by an average 17 percent on Aug. 1.

It is the third consecutive that the state’s largest provider of individual coverage has boosted rates by double digits. And it comes after two other insurers, Group Health Cooperative and LifeWise Health Plan of Washington, recently imposed similarly steep premium increases. (My emphasis)

Dr. McCanne goes on:

Once Congress passes a mandate for individuals to purchase health plans, presumably non-profit Regence BlueShield, as the largest provider of individual plans in the state of Washington, would be a provider of those plans. Also, Group Health Cooperative is the co-op that has been proposed to serve as a model for the public option.

Group Health has been shifting more costs to patients through consumer-directed high deductible plans and HSAs, and still has a double digit hike in premiums. Some model.

Can anyone seriously state, with a straight face, that mandating purchase of these plans will somehow magically end the double digit increases in premiums for these plans?

The answer to this question is actually quite complex, but the fundamental truth is that the cost containment measures under consideration in Congress will have very little impact in slowing the escalation of health care costs. (My emphasis)

O, Brave New World! In health care, so much like the old world. Because our leaders feel they must care for the parasites and not disrupt their feeding habits.

Meet the new boss , so much like the old boss....

where Bl Cr/Bl Sh are a virtual monopoly. And I only have the catastrophic, if a plane crashes into me on a Thursday, "insurance", can't afford any more. It doesn't pay for any preventatives, they send me reminders of things that would be good to do like mammograms, but they don't pay anything towards getting them.

JOIN US -- JULY 30TH --FOR THE SINGLE PAYER RALLY AND LOBBY DAY IN WASHINGTON, DC.

Join your fellow Americans on July 30th in Washington, DC to show Congress and President Obama that we support a national, single-payer healthcare system and demand the passage of HR 676.

Single Payer Rally and Lobby Day in Washington, DC, July 30th. See more information here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/single-payer-rally/

Please download the flyer and post it everywhere: http://www.healthcare-now.org/docs/july30.pdf

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, freedom, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency.

SPREAD THE WORD! TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

wendell potter:

A study conducted last year by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed just how successful the insurers’ expense management and purging actions have been over the last decade in meeting Wall Street’s expectations. The accounting firm found that the collective medical-loss ratios of the seven largest for-profit insurers fell from an average of 85.3 percent in 1998 to 81.6 percent in 2008. That translates into a difference of several billion dollars in favor of insurance company shareholders and executives and at the expense of health care providers and their patients.

the total national health expenditure is up to about $2.3-2.4 trillion now, of which about 34% is paid for through private insurance. 34% of $2.3 trillion = $782 billion.

85.3% [used to go to paying for care] - 81.6% [what goes to paying for care now] = 3.7% difference

3.7% of $782 billion = $29 billion that went to insurance companies that could have gone to care instead. $29 billion, at $1708 per kid [2006], would have paid for medicaid for nearly 17 million kids.

This bill and/or the Senate HELP bill are probably the high water mark. This isn't even what's going to pass. What's going to pass is going to be some compromise away from this in all likelihood. I can hardly wait to read the Finance Committee bill, what a piece of shit that's going to be.

I understand that this might help a few people around the edges and, hey, helping anyone who needs it is a good thing. However, not even starting the public option until 2013? Bullshit. No real cost controls? Bullshit. Even if you accept, which I don't, the premise that we have to keep some sort of private health insurance system, this does it in stupid, overly complicated, expensive ways.

Instead of thinking about the fucking insider politics of it, I wish more people would look at the real politics of it. How are people who need healthcare and who have been promised it going to react to getting this shit? And by shit, I mean they could be forced to buy expensive junk insurance (there seems to be insufficient subsidies, cost controls, and quality guarantees), they could lose their jobs because their employers can't afford to give up 8% of their payroll in a down economy, and they can't get the public option - assuming they can even qualify for it - for four years. Plus, they're going to fuck with your relatives' Medicare coverage so be prepared to help out Mom and Dad.

I have good insurance and still I hate it and I hate dealing with it. It often sends me in a rage to have to deal with my insurer on pretty much any issue. I can't imagine how much people who have shitty insurance must hate it. And this pretty much guarantees that every American keeps overpaying for something they hate.

While I support single payer, I could be convinced to also support some sort of mandates on the basis that it's better than nothing. But mandated insurance only works if you have a viable public option available to all - and I do mean all - and serious cost control and regulation of the industry. These "good" bills don't seem to have any of those things. As a result, the only thing to recommend them is if you believe it will piss Americans off to such an extent that they will finally get off their asses and raise hell to demand real healthcare reform, like single payer.