Tag Archives: health care

Political Rants

Like they care.

One more shot at this Affordable Care Act issue, and then I’ll shut up about it for a while. It irritates the hell out of me, to be honest, that I have to defend this product of a conservative think tank, but that’s the crossroad we find ourselves at. Just a few points:

Denying working people healthcare since 2008People losing health insurance. This is a shocker, but people have always been booted out of their health plans. This is nothing new. Sure, Obama didn’t qualify his claim that people could stick with their policies if they liked them. But the media’s claim that this amounts to the President’s “Katrina moment” is simply ludicrous. All of the examples of people who have been forced off of their substandard plans have involved people who can generally afford better. One brought forward by NBC was a freaking attorney in Washington. Come on!

People never getting health insurance. While the G.O.P. and the entire mainstream media have had their hair on fire about the attorney lady who lost her catastrophic health insurance, their political allies in statehouses across the country have done everything they can to ensure that the ACA is a failure. A key component of this is refusal to expand Medicaid, which is keeping millions of working poor people from getting coverage. The reason for this is purely ideological. Louisiana governor “Bobby” Jindal complained about having more people in the cart than pulling the cart, implying that Medicaid expansion would only help the unemployed. Sure it would (and it should), but it wold also help millions of working families – people who work a hell of a lot harder than he ever has.

I’m beginning to think that Bill Clinton should have climbed aboard the ACA-type plan the Republicans were proposing back in the nineties, before they went entirely insane. At least that would have been in place, and there would have been some opportunity to improve upon it since.

As it stands now, the G.O.P. have no concrete proposal to provide health coverage to every American. Their only plan is to shoot the ACA down before it gets some traction.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Lies, etc.

The airwaves are thick with heated commentary on how President Obama overstated the simplicity of his signature health insurance legislation, popularly known as Obamacare. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” was how the refrain went throughout his first term. It was an unqualified statement and, indeed, an emotionally potent oversimplification of the type we see in political rhetoric, I don’t know … how about all the time?

Right, so, he lied in the sense that what he said was not accurate for 100% of the people who have health insurance, 100% of the time. It is, however, accurate for about 95% of the people 100% of the time, and for the other 5%, only some of the time. If you have a super crappy individual health insurance plan with an enormous deductible and you signed onto Who lied about Obamacare? Seriously?it before implementation of the Affordable Care Act, sure, you can keep that dog – it’s grandfathered in. The insurance companies simply can’t continue selling those policies now that the law is in effect because – and this is important – THEY SUCK TOO BADLY, and because of that, they do not comply with the law.

To hear t.v. commentators of nearly every stripe talk about this, you would think individual life insurance is some kind of Eden from which subscribers are being exiled by pitchfork-wielding devils. Let me tell you, I spent many years in the private insurance market. I had a plan with Mutual of Omaha and one with Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. Mutual of Omaha paid for exactly nothing; the money went one way, from me to them. BCBS was mostly BS – I had a high deductible, as did my wife. I remember once going to my doctor because of a persistent cough, having to get some blood work, and being declared well. That cost me $500 (in 2005). My wife had an emergency room visit that came to $2,000. (She was fine, also.)

My point? Jon Stewart made it best. The people who are yelling “liar!” the loudest are the same ones that have been telling ridiculous lies about the ACA since its passage. In the liars hall of fame, Obama’s “never” clause ranks far behind “death panels” and not even in the same league as “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Over the edge.

The fiscal cliff is just ahead. Be afraid, be afraid! Are you afraid yet? Well, you’re supposed to be. Going over the “fiscal cliff” is the worst thing that can possibly happen – worse even than … I don’t know … losing your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Friends, this is the oldest trick in the book. Our leaders have done their best to bankrupt the government over the last decade and a half, coupling undeclared wars with massive tax cuts, crashing the economy through their vaunted hands-off approach to the financial sector, etc. Now when it comes time to pay the tab, guess who’s picking it up? Not a big surprise that they’re running out on the check. They only do it every freaking time.

Listening to the series of Republican interviews that is NPR the other day, I heard some talk of raising the Medicare eligibility age as one means of covering their failed fiscal policy decisions. That has to take the prize as the stupidest idea ever proposed. Sure, take the youngest people out of the Medicare system – the people who need the least care! That’s a surefire way to bankrupt the program, which I’m sure is their ultimate aim. The G.O.P. has always hated Medicare, almost as much as they hate Social Security, despite their claims to the contrary. If they were truly serious about saving money, they would be expanding Medicare to include younger, healthier people, not the other way around.

The thing we have to watch like the proverbial hawk is our election year friends, the Democratic Party. We need to remind them who gave them victory a few weeks ago. We need to encourage them to challenge the Republicans on their fealty to the same failed policies Milton Friedman advocated decades ago, on their determination to protect the private tyranny that is the health insurance industry. We need to encourage them to do the right thing, no less.

That is what we should be focusing on, not irrational fear.

luv u,

jp