At Least Birthers Do Homework
But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama’s birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.
via Hawaii considering law to ignore Obama ‘birthers’ – Yahoo! News.
I was tempted to laugh at this story about the Birthers still asking for Barack Obama’s birth information — the state of Hawaii is considering passing a law allowing them to ignore these requests — but then it occurred to me that at least those people are actually doing their homework.
On the other hand, I get pestered at least once a day by some lunatic who a) hasn’t noticed that I actually oppose the health care bill, and b) has fallen for the reams of robo-emails floating around the internet making extravagant claims about what’s in the Obama Health Bill. One of the most popular is something written by a Texas County Judge named David Kithil – I have no idea if he actually exists or not — who purports to have combed through HR 3200 and found evidence of all sorts of fiendishness. Some of the highlights of the evils lurking in the Health Care bill, according to this possibly-real person:
** Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance
to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally.** Page 58 and 59: The government will have
real-time access to an individual’s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.** Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by
the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – ACORN).** Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this
section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)** Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same
regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors’ fees.** Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration
care according to the patient’s age.** Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a
prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.** Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates
advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an “end-of-life planning” seminar every five years. (Death counceling.)** Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify
which doctors can write an end-of-life order.
Attention all you fine citizens who are writing to me about this stuff: instead of sending abusive emails to a person who actually opposes the bill, do us all a favor and read the fucking bill. Thanks to a miraculous invention called the internet, you can find it quite easily. Here, I’ll even give you the link. Check each one of those supposed clauses and you’ll find they’re all bullshit, if you can even find them at all.
The author of this Rovian screed was clever. He picked sections of the bill that used very general language and then simply pasted lies on top of them that sounded like they might fit, even when they did not. A good example is the first bit about section 152, which does indeed prohibit discrimination and provides health coverage “without regard to personal characteristics.” Section 152, however, says nothing about immigrants.
The section that does talk about immigrants is section 242, the “Affordability Credit Eligible Individual” section, which basically defines an “affordability credit eligible individual,” i.e. a subsidy-eligible individual, as a person who is “lawfully present in a state in the United States.”
Similarly, while there is a section giving providers the ability to check on a patient’s ability to pay, there is nothing in there allowing withdrawals or transfers to or from a person’s bank account. And the advance care deal, as we all, know, does not mandate advance care consultation every five years; what the bill says is that if you want advance care consultation, you can’t get it more often than once every five years, unless there’s an extraordinary reason (i.e. a significant new change in the person’s condition, an injury, etc.).
But you’d have to actually read the bill to learn that. Much easier, of course, to simply rely upon the analysis of some anonymous internet author who can’t spell “counseling.” Is this a great country, or what?
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Matt,
Just so you know, the link to the actual health care bill doesn’t work. Also, I’d be interested to know how you feel about Kucinich agreeing to vote for it. I want to be optimistic that the crap within the bill can be fixed in the years to come, but I’m worried that we are continuing to feed the insurance company monster with some of the provisions contained within.
This should be fixed. It’s a PDF file…
In response to another comment. See in context »And now Kucinich has caved. What are your thoughts on the press conference, Matt? It bums me right the fuck out, even if I’m deeply ambivalent about the ultimate value of the bill itself (you just can’t convince me that a private insurance mandate is in anyway ethical). But regardless of whether the bill got through, there should have been a strong progressive voice in principled objection. And in the end, Kucinich got nothing – no weakened public option, no ERISA waiver. So why should anyone take progressives seriously in the future? Where’s our bargaining chip if you can count on every last progressive vote for any watered down, neoliberal legislation you throw up there?
I have gone back and forth from the “better than nothing” argument to the “its a bailout for the health insurance industry” argument, and my feeling is that whether this passes or not, single payer is still probably ineveitable.
If this legislation does pass, then the principle of health insurance as a right (ie, no discrimination for pre-existing illness, no lifetime caps, etc.) will be enshrined in law. The Republicans are not likely to ever tamper with that, and therefor the argument will then become “what do we need the middleman for”? Private insurers lose.
If it doesn’t pass, then companies like Anthem Blue Cross will continue to make their product unaffordable, and unemployment figures will exacerbate the number of people with no health insurance. The call will go out to Congress to revisit the issue, the Teabaggers will be swamped by the Uninsured, and again, private insurance is driven to extinction.
So aren’t we really in a win/win situation?
I agree. This is by no means a perfect bill, but we have to start somewhere. It would have been really nice if the progressives could have gotten everything we wanted but that’s not the case now and never has been. frankly, looking back, i think we were all a little bit too excited over having the 60 vote super majority that we forgot that we might actually have to fight to get the votes of our constituents. in actuality its the “big tent” nature of the democrats that doom us to never be as quite effective at passing legislation as the “tiny tent” nature of the republicans. is there any doubt that if george bush had a stroke and decided to pass health care legislation that it would have passed 6 months ago?
In response to another comment. See in context »> the Teabaggers will be swamped by the Uninsured
Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but the Teabaggers have proven to be so stupid that, as their uninsured number swells, they’ll eventually swallow some Palin/Beck bullshit story about how it’s good not to have insurance anyway. I mean, these guys are seriously brain-damaged.
Unless you’re saying that protests by unemployeds/uninsureds and/or progresives will dwarf the Teabagger protests. Hasn’t happened so far, and it seems it never will. Trust me, I’d be first to grab a picket sign (or a brick to huck at a Goldman/Anthem/Monsanto window) if I weren’t so responsibly occupied right now, blogging and enjoying this Shamrock Shake, just like the rest of y’all.
In response to another comment. See in context »I was under a similar understanding. However, the real question is how long this inevitable policy shift will take.
If the legislation fails, single-payer might be viewed more seriously and the issue might be brought up again in the next 5-10 yrs (if we were lucky).
If the legislation passes, health insurance is further privatized (w/ the universal mandate) and companies are further entrenched into healthcare delivery. I would venture that if the legislation passes, politicians (i.e. Obama) would declare victory and forget promises of further reform. Companies will have more resources and further interest in a highly privatized system. Any real argument of healthcare reform will be much later (10-15 yrs.).
In the long-run, it seems like a win/win. However, for those sick and dying today (44,000 deaths/yr x 10 yrs = 440,000 unnecessary deaths in the next decade), its a lose/lose.
In response to another comment. See in context »I totally agree.
In response to another comment. See in context »Logically, you’ve got a point, but realistically, this discounts the fact that the current reform effort has only gotten as far as it has precisely because it’s (at least in part) a bailout for the insurance industry. Look at all the opposition it’s gotten, even with the administration from the outset doing everything it could to appease the insurance and medical industries.
An actual single payer plan would be an existential threat to the health insurance business. They’d fight it with every dollar left in their coffers, with the pharmaceutical industry not far behind.
The political reality is that this country will never have single payer. I’d bet anything anybody’d care to name.
In response to another comment. See in context »I really want to believe that it is a win/win, but I can’t. We have grown increasingly comfortable with privatization and seeing our neighbors suffer. This bill is a massive privatization effort, in my opinion, and does nothing to alleviate suffering because it does nothing to protect the under-insured nor does it guarantee health care, only private health insurance. Mandating that everyone buy health insurance from for-profit corporations without anti-trust regulation or other safeguards is a disaster in the making. Sadly, I don’t see us fighting for something better when this bill finally takes effect in four years. We’re rather like the proverbial frog in the pot, slowly boiling in our corporate stew. Of course, I really hope I’m wrong!
In response to another comment. See in context »Give the wingnuts some credit, Matt, at least they can read. You are dealing with the brightest of the bright.
1. a meta-comment about ‘reading the damn bill’:
is *that* my ‘job’ (since i have none, and prospects are dim) now ? to do the work that kongresskritters DON’T do ? ? ?
*i* -a nobody with no experience in the field, no insider knowledge, no particular legislative expertise- am supposed to read, research, and analyze -what?- EVERY bill that goes through kongress, SINCE THEY DON’T READ THE BILLS themselves ? ? ?
not only that, but i’m supposed to read, research, and analyze a moving target that i (and everyone not inside the process) will not have any solid information about until it is finalized and too late to protest ? ? ?
crap, i *thought* that was what i was electing ‘representatives’ to do… how stupid am i ? ? ?
not to mention, that puts participatory democracy out of reach for MOST amerikans who have neither the time, resources, or experience to research and analyze what is going on in washington… (ASSUMING the superficial kabuki play we li’l peeps see is ‘real’, and NOT that there are deep political forces at work below the surface which are rarely known or described…)
2. …and then what ? ? ? *assume* i do read what is available, and assume the final bill takes a similar form: then what ? ? ?
my ultra-informed opinion is going to do what for me -and the process- exactly ? ? ? kongresskritters are *NOW* going to listen to me/us ’cause we did our homework ? (you know, ’cause i inform them of shit they didn’t know was in THEIR OWN fucking bill ? ? ? really ?)
is *that* really how this broken system works ?
i don’t think so: i can be THE most informed person on this -or any other issue- proffer my (unsolicited) facts, factoids and opinions to ‘my’ (sic) kongresskritter, AND IT WON’T MEAN SHIT…
(see: iraq, pre-war protests)
3. not to mention, is not the VERY PURPOSE of the media to serve as my proxy, and THEY (you?) read the damn bill and inform ME what the fuck is going on ? ? ? (since my kongresskritters don’t or won’t)
(and doesn’t that just prove -for the zillionth time- that the mainstream infotainment media does NOT serve the public interest ? ? ?)
4. NOT to say that the public doesn’t need to do *some* homework to figure out what is what, but we can’t depend on our kongresskritters, we have to watch them; we can’t depend on our media, we have to watch them; we can’t depend on the punditocracy, we have to watch them…
in short, ALL of society at the top of the food chain has failed us in their purported roles, and WE INDIVIDUALS -without resources, without insider status, without ANYTHING but a fucking inertnet tube up our ass- have to take up the slack and TRY to do what the system fails to do…
great, that’ll work…
(cue keyboard kat)
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
There’s a very simply reason, Ann Archy: People have different opinions.
There are no *one truth* here, as you imply with your comment.
In plain physics, if you apply X pressure here, then Y will happen. Not so with several hundred million humans – such a system is very chaotic. If you apply X whatever here, all sorts of stuff might happen – there is WAY too many variables to be certain of the outcome. This is the discussion: What is the outcome of such a very huge change in your society? You cannot expect one true answer to this.
But the bill is the first sign of your country becoming anything near humane. Maybe there is a slight sliver of hope for you after all.
In response to another comment. See in context »When I think of all the time, energy and money reality based folks have spent on humoring the Birthers, I have to shake my head.
Imagine if all that power was pooled together and directed to something to benefit society. We could knock out at least one major social issue by next week.
Matt — I’m willing to assign a big chunk of the blame on laziness, and another big chunk to the selection bias of news sources. (People who ONLY listen to either Hannity or Maddow.)
How much of the lack of homework do you attribute to ennui? The notion that there were so many competing bills for so long that no one was sure what was there, or which bills to source? And just a general lack of trust that what’s posted online isn’t going to be operative out of Reconciliation anyway?
(Oh… and your link didn’t work.)
The mandate in this bill will die at the hands of the conservative Supremes. So maybe that’s the plan. Dems can say they tried, even though they didn’t and repubs can gloat that they killed a federal mandate. Win win for everyone but those of us dying and going bankrupt. Yeah, America, home of the free to sieze up and die.
Here are some links for the HR 3200: (http://www.candacemiller.hoise.gov/pdf/hr3200.pdf) and (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text). Since the above “link cannot be loaded,: you can always copy these urls into your browser.
As for Kithil, this came up in a google search: “Send comments to: The Honorable David Kithil, Judge, Burnet County, 220 South Pierce Street, Burnet, TX 78611.” There was also this link (http://www.professorprofits.com/states/county.php?state=TX&county=Burnet) and some stuff to ZoomInfo and Pipl profiles, so it seems that he’s a 3D breathing entity. Yes – Kithil’s getting plenty of page space with his crackpot criticisms a s well; at least this page comes up in the search engine.
Who cares where Oreobama was born. I don’t. I do care that he is a total TOOL, a puppet, and the trust of those who loved him is betrayed. You go read the fucking bill yourself. It’s long, it’s complicated, and will benefit those who wrote it. If you find something in it that will advance the common good, hooray. At what it’s going to cost, you don’t want it.
my lefty brethren sent out the Kucinich caves response/announcement to me…I returned with the response “The Left Always rolls”…it truly doesn’t matter, those that truly have a desire to actually aid those that need it, will constantly compromise to those that have a “F$%^ EM” attitude just to get the minimal of benefits.
One has to constantly babysit the children, we as a society have given reams of coverage to “show us your Birth certificate” “Blue Dress”, “Mena Arkansas” you name to loon-icy of the day. The whole health care debate ranged from seniors screaming that they didn’t want socialism to a hick from Alaska saying we gonna kill these same seniors.
Just sad, America is smashing itself upon the rocks, and we are so hamstrung we will be incapable of do anything. Well I have given up, now just sit back and watch the show…oh that reminds me Alex Jones is on, need to go listen before I catch Glen Beck this evening…(why do I listen to this tripe…well when I hear em talk about how the commies, anarchist, socialist and unionist are controlling everything, It cheers me up…least with them my side seems to be winning the fight, as oppose to rolling over)…if it is all coming down around us might as well enjoy the entertainment
Matt,
Why do you oppose the health care bill?
Isn’t that bill the sole avenue your country possibly can take towards becoming slightly less insanely, and I mean seriously, deeply, darkly, absolutely evily fucked up?
those of us o the Left oppose the bill because we deem it another shake down by the big insurance companies, they can shift off their high risk folk onto the public dole while getting a massive bunch of young relatively healthy folks forced into their arms….also some of us believe it further cements the idea of private insurance as the only viable method in this society
In response to another comment. See in context »First of all, recognize you are in a tiny minority. The most recent poll indicates that only 3% of self-described liberals oppose the bill.
(http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/poll-liberals-entirely-united-behind-passing-health-bill/)
With even Kucinich on board now, you speak for few people beyond yourself.
Second, your argument makes no sense. You use the phrase “public dole” the way Newt Gingrich does to attack social welfare programs when you in fact hope (presumably) that the “public dole” eventually becomes the only “dole” via single-payer health care delivery. How can an expansion of that “dole” be a bad idea?
This bill expands the Medicaid rolls by 15 million people. That is a single-payer govt plan! The highest risk people – the elderly – have already been shifted onto the public dole via Medicare. Would you prefer to reverse that? Would you prefer this bill did not cut Medicare advantage (a subsidy to insurance companies that allows them to compete for customers with Medicare) by $500 billion?
The massive bunch of primarily healthy folks you describe as a gift to the insurance industry is in exchange for an end to recission policies and pre-condition discrimination. You cannot add unhealthy people who we can be sure will cost much more to treat than they can afford to pay without also adding healthy people who can pay more than they will cost. This is Econ 101.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, there are a lot of reasons I’m against this bill. But the big one is that the mandate is a radical change. What you’re doing is forcing people to become customers of a product that is overpriced thanks to state protection. That’s using state power to guarantee private profits. Think of the possibilities once that precedent has been set. Not that companies haven’t been feeding off state largesse for ages, but this is a significant evolutionary advance of the concept.
In response to another comment. See in context »No one really likes the mandate (except perhaps the insurance companies) but there is no credible health care economist that will tell you its possible to end health-condition discrimination without an individual mandate. Otherwise, I would just not purchase insurance until I got hit by a bus and then demand the insurer cover my pre-existing bus-mangled body. Insurers would then have no choice but to raise rates exorbitantly to compensate for such eventualities, pushing out more healthy people, causing a death spiral.
In response to another comment. See in context »Okay, fine. If you’re going to end the preexisting condition problem, you probably have to have some kind of mandate. But not THIS mandate. If you’re going to have an individual mandate, you have to at least end the antitrust exemption or have a public option. Otherwise you’re making people become purchasers of a product put out by an industry protected from competition.
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree 100%, I just think legislation that addresses both of those things becomes increasingly likely in an environment in which 1) HC reform passes, proving that its not impossible to enact meaningful reform, and 2) the new system leaves govt with much more skin in the game (because of the subsidies, out-of-pocket caps, etc) and feels any potential gouging much more directly. Right now, the pain is mostly absorbed by consumers who, as we know, don’t have quite as many lobbyists in DC.
Legislation to end the anti-trust exemption has already passed the House 406-19. Its future in the filibuster-wracked Senate is a little less certain but its by no means a legislative impossibility.
Further, while I am disappointed we didn’t get a public option, without rates tied to Medicare it wouldn’t have worked very well anyway. Abandoning that idea kinda gave away the store. Luckily, however, we already have a public option called Medicare and while expanding it may seem like a fanciful idea right now, I would wager that a post-HC reform environment in which people generally consider the reforms to be beneficial — and the political center of health care politics has moved left enough to encompass the concept that we don’t just kill or bankrupt anyone unlucky enough to get sick without first being a millionaire — will engender many possibilities previously considered off the table.
In response to another comment. See in context »I have a 6′4″ 220lb Republican friend in podiatry school, and even he thinks that the individual mandate would only be fair if people also had the choice of a public option. It is popular amongst people who aren’t conspiracy theorists or Reagan-humping intellectual necrophiliacs.
Regarding insurance companies’ weirdass antitrust exemption, I thought the public exchange would allow people to buy insurance across state lines. The good kind, too.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yeah, that’s kind of the rub on this. I’m “for” the bill in that since it is all that is being talked about, and probably the best this current administration can get passed, I’m “for” it. It will save lives and will stop most bankruptcies. Obviously, like you, I want a public option. Really, I want the German system, but that goes back to the rub I was talking about.
Any/all systems in the world more functional than ours have some sort of “mandate”. Single payer obviously, the German system does under a certain income level, and down the line. They work though because the mandate is making them buy into one pool to use monopsony purchasing ability to drastically reduce the cost. This is not happening with this bill, which is what I’ve been able to discern is your (and my) biggest beef with this bill. It’s forcing people to buy into an industry that cannot sustain itself. This will just be a delay in the inevitable. Even with 45 million new clients, the need for millions in salaries, profits (despite the already minuscule margins), and having to run a 30% administration cost denying care to stay profitable make these “businesses” an abomination to the free market that those who oppose this legislation and the public option hold so dear. At least the pre-existing clause in this bill may save some paperwork and clerical effort as they won’t be able to weasel their way out of those now.
Either way, I think this bill is just the means to an inevitable end. The insurance industry cannot sustain itself. Even if every American went out and signed up for a gym membership and eating fast food today, the cost of care and machinery and prescriptions and new tech and procedures is just too high for a fragmented buyer base via the providers. Despite what all the “free marketers” want to believe, not everything can be saved by the invisible hand. Sometimes we have to band together and save it ourselves.
In response to another comment. See in context »Has anyone yet articulated what sort of societal good is necessary in order for the government to mandate that citizens purchase a product from a private company? Unless I’ve missed something, it seems to me that no one has discussed the limits of the new power. Will the government order us to buy newspapers so we can be better informed? Will we be mandated to pay for a university education from a private, for-profit institution? I’m a liberal and anything but a tea bagger, but I want to know what the limits are.
In response to another comment. See in context »Flash Matt!!!
38 out of 50 State Attorney Generals are lined up to file cases challenging the Constitutionality of the health care cram down scheme and you are challenging an e-mail.
Address the facts and law sir , not as someone on the left side of the actuarial bell curve but instead as the fin investigative journalist that you were regardng the financia melt down.
In response to another comment. See in context »So how long have you been living in the U.S.?
In response to another comment. See in context »Here’s something at Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/frazer.asp
The fact remains the first black president is a lunatic
RE:the state of Hawaii is considering passing a law allowing them to ignore these requests
They are also punishing those who repeatedly request to see obama’s hidden birth certificate……by barring them from access to all hawaiian public documents for two years…….a way to shut down everyone for the next election
I find it remarkable that you waste so much time, effort and energy on such ridiculous claims. Get over it dude.
In response to another comment. See in context »Never trust a guy who hides his birth certificate….but then again, we have fanatics who don’t care if he hides his birth certificate
In response to another comment. See in context »Do you have any black friends, Crazy Andy?
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s not my fault Obama is a lunatic….and looking for any way to pass his stupid health care bill…legally or un-Constitutionally
The first black president and former harvard professor of constitutional law is no friend of the Constitution
Obama is modeling his presidency after Ugandan dictators, not george washingtons
In response to another comment. See in context »beware of feeding the trolls…
In response to another comment. See in context »If obama was a republican, the democrat trolls would be tearing hawaii apart, rock, by, rock,looking for his birth certificate…..
In response to another comment. See in context »Why should I care? The Birth Certificate isn’t even important. The citizenship papers of either of his parents are, and since those are well documented, well, you can just bugger back off to your bunker where you wank yourself off to pictures of Joe McCarthy while waiting for Red Dawn to become a reality.
In response to another comment. See in context »Both Cowboys Stadium and The Ballpark in Arlington were paid for by a special sales tax. The taxes were approved by voting residents of the city of Arlington, Texas. Note that the sales tax applied to everyone, and people who bought more stuff paid more. Note too the city did not mandate residents buy season tickets to Rangers and Cowboys games. Thankfully for the citizens of Arlington, congressional Democrats did not devise the plan.
Under such a plan, residents who were wealthy enough to already have season tickets would not have to contribute a penny. And when poor citizens resignedly went to buy their mandated tickets, they would have found out they could not buy cheap endzone or bleacher tickets, but were required to buy 40-yard-line seats.
And everyone in the sky boxes would have slapped each other on the back and lifted toasts to sellout crowds.
…hillarious
Matt, I was a reporter for 20 years, and I have it on good authority that if an idea reaches the printed-word phase, IT MUST BE TRUE.
No, really!
I covered the federal trial of several tax protesters who had a pamphlet stating that taxes aren’t Constitutional, federal reserve notes aren’t money, and if you rename “trade” and call it “barter” taxes don’t apply.
It was really amazing, then, when that prosecutor convinced the jury to convict them all of tax evasion and the judge to sentence them to prison terms.
I even saw the pamphlet and other writings, so their claims must have had merit, right?
Its obviously the same thing with Judge Kithil’s screed. Nuff said on that!
On the other hand, if Hawaii can’t produce an actual birth certificate, there’s nothing “in writing” to prove the president EVEN EXISTS, is there?
These things really aren’t very complicated. Once you give up independent thought and all claims of lucidity, they really aren’t complicated at all…
Conspiracy theories upon conspiracy theories. There is no president. It’s all staged. Come on, everyone, think about it. A white woman (from Kansas!) has an affair with a Kenyan exchange student in 1960! If it was fiction would you find it plausible. Conveniently, they’re both dead. Did you see Avatar? They can do really cool special effects now.
In response to another comment. See in context »A friend who sent me the Kithil e-mail rapidly followed up with the Politifact debunking here — http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jul/30/e-mail-analysis-health-bill-needs-check-/ That makes it all even worse — tools like Politifact, Snopes, etc. etc. already did the homework for us.
The whole thing has left me spent and disgusted. If Obama had taken this on a year later, it would have played-out differently because he would have the chops to mince his opponents. But he didn’t and if it passes, it will be a Pyrric victory, one that history will judge to have caused more damage than good to our country.
I don’t have the time or inclination to go through this 1990 page turd sausage with a fine toothed comb, but I did notice in Sec. 1186 (page 582 of the pdf version of Matt’s link) that there is language which appears to rescind the Medicare Part D rule against Medicare being able to negotiate for lower pharmaceutical prices. Is there an attorney reading this who can confirm or deny this?
*sigh*
In response to another comment. See in context »this is EXACTLY the point i was trying to make in my post near the top…
*HOW* can you/me/EVERYBODY be expected to be instant experts on all the ins-and-outs of these massive bills, the legalisms, the conditionals, the references to other laws, the medical ramifications, and the net result after all the oversight boards are dominated by the industry, they get their last minute ’shalls’ changed to ‘mays’, and otherwise game a system THEY WILL CONTROL…
i DO NOT trust these kongresskritters (OR the o-rahma borg) to fix a bent paper clip, much less this health insurance bailout bill…
i ask this VALID question: WHAT has obama and the dem’rats ‘fixed’ since they’ve been running the show ? ? ?
did they or didn’t they ‘pledge’ to ‘fix’ ALL sorts of evil -from wars, to public option, to the pat riot act- which they have done either NOTHING to ameliorate, OR HAVE EXTENDED AND ENHANCED THE EVIL ! ! !
…but -c’mon gang!- let’s just trust them ole spineless dem’rats on this one…
why should i, fuck a bunch of useless dem’rats ? ? ?
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
You know, I have to agree. I just scoured the bill looking for the answer to a very specific questions and never even came close.
It is 445,000 words — four times as long as “Huckleberry Finn” and just shy of “War and Peace.” The word “mandate” occurred only six times and none of them appeared pertinent to my concerns.
Matt, or anyone: who can I contact to find out what the legislation actually means to me? If I provide:
a) my age
b) my assets
c) my income (and expected income)
d) my health (if it matters)
should not someone be able to tell me in five or ten seconds what the price will be for my insurance premium and what portion, if any, the government will sudsidize?
Isn’t that the most basic question a citizen could ask? I’m not keen on Pelosi’s idea of passing the bill then looking to see what is in it.
If someone knows of a chart, that would be great.
In response to another comment. See in context »http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx
I think that is what I needed: a calculator at Kaiser Family Foundation. (I can’t vouch for its accuracy.)
In response to another comment. See in context »As an older self-employed person I can tell any doubters out there that a lot of people in my position have no choice but to hope this thing passes. I really don’t care if it’s flawed, all legislation is, but my option right now is to never get sick or have an accident, because if I do I’ll be bankrupt.
If I still had insurance through an employer, I might feel differently about this bill like a lot of the insured obviously do. But even the insured have no guarantee it’ll be there when they need it because decent coverage through an honest insurer is a luxury in this country.
I just don’t see how this bill will protect you from bankruptcy should you have a catastrophic illness. This bill does not address quality or quantity of health care, nor does it address the issues of being under-insured. I have a friend who has insurance and still ended up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills after a catastrophic accident. I have insurance, but after an outpatient surgery I was left with $11,000 in bills. I don’t see how this legislation will prevent these situations from happening. Even when it comes to rescission, the legislation gives insurers the same out they have now: if they say that you lied on your application or in any way committed ‘fraud’ then you can be rescinded and denied coverage. Unfortunately, this legislation does not guarantee decent coverage nor does it guarantee that insurers will be ‘honest’. It only guarantees that 30 million Americans will be mandated to purchase health insurance from for-profit corporations, and that if the uninsured don’t buy insurance, they’ll be fined. We need to ask the simple question: what service does the private health insurance industry provide? Why are they important? Why should they be in the equation at all? If we’re honest, then we have to admit that they serve no real purpose at all and only drain resources from our taxed system. We need to cut out the middle man.
In response to another comment. See in context »The one thing we know for sure is that if this bill doesn’t pass, however lacking it may be, nothing at all will be done for many years to come and the number of people in my position (or worse) will only increase.
And there is the chance that whatever it lacks may be addressed later if it becomes clear it’s a burden on the people it tries to help and a godsend to the people it wasn’t meant to help.
And lastly, we know for sure that if it doesn’t pass, this president will have his legs taken out from under him and I myself would like to see him do other things and also serve another term.
In response to another comment. See in context »Indeed. I look at the insurance industry the same way I do bookies. Their job is to move money around from a pool of it to the “winners” and skim the spoils from the losers. They don’t actually do anything else other than leech from the money they collect and redistribute the rest. Now they will collect even more whether I want to support them or not.
I was happy to give up driving in part because I wouldn’t have to give money willingly to people I don’t like. Now I will have to against my will if this becomes reality. Piece of shit country.
In response to another comment. See in context »The County Judge of Burnet County (where Marble Falls is located) is Donna Klaeger, elected in 2006.
http://www.burnetcountytexas.org/default.aspx?name=countyjudge
Also, in Texas, a County Judge is not a judge. It´s the title of chief executive officer of county government.
I have made too many comments in this thread today, I know, but I feel obligated to make this last one. If a person can put aside the objection to being forced to buy insurance from a for-profit company, and if one looks at this strictly from a “what’s in it for me?” angle, you probably need to use the calculators if you have not already.
First a couple of things: Age is a factor, and income is a factor. Assets are not. (That was my biggest concern, being somewhat retired and living, poorly, off my life savings. If they screw me around on that, I reserve the right to regain my prior furor.) There are also high, medium, and low cost areas. For my examples, I used high. Income is gross annual income.
Using an example of a single person (that’s all I looked at, singles, but there are choices for families) aged 55, and adjusting for the subsidy, premiums were roughly $2700 a year for a 30K income. $7930 for a 45K income. The cutoff for Medicaid was about 14K. Oh, and a 25-year-old making 90K would only pay $2600.
I saw some weird things, like bumping up a salary from 43K to 44K caused the insurance cost to go up more than 1K. At any rate, I found two calculators were pretty much in agreement on the estimates. I can’t vouch for either, but assume they are accurate. One is the Kaiser Family Foundation:
http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx
The other is Cal-Berkeley and you can get to it from here:
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/index.shtml
The Berkeley calculator seems to automatically use “low-cost area.” (Liberals making the plan seem more attractive? Haha, maybe.) The Berkeley calculator also is quicker to show results after changing input numbers.
Okay, here’s the part where I say, I was probably offbase in my vehement objection to the bill — from my own selfish, personal standpoint, anyway. If the president and the Democrats want to sell this bill to the people, they really need to get people like me to punch the numbers into the calculators. And they absolutely need to stress that it is income-based only, that assets are not included at all in calculating subsidies.
A person who might or might not be happy would be a 55-year-old making 45K in a high-cost area. He’ll have to pay $7900. (For comparison, I’m 53, in good health, no bad habits and I pay $3000 a year for $5000 deductable.) People roughly 50-64 making $45K or more will have to pay 100% of the premium, so if they currently have high deductible or no insurance, they have a pretty decent gripe (especially since there is no public option).
Use the calculators. The plan might be more socialist, heh, than you realize.
As always, do you own math and research. I could certainly be wrong. (Or the calculators could be flawed, I suppose.)
Thanks for the links to the calculators.
I’m really surprised at how low the cost of the insurance premiums are. Are they realistic?
In response to another comment. See in context »I assume so. I have to wonder why these numbers have not been made more available to the public. Sure, the calculators have been there, but why don’t we see charts like the following plastered all over the place.
For a 50-year-old single person, the premium is $8000/year. Here is a chart showing the part you will have to pay, i.e., not covered by a subsidy:
Income You pay Pct of total
Up to 14,500 0 Medicare
30,000 2700 34%
45,000 and over 8000 100%
Of course, you could fill in the gaps and do charts for couples with children, etc. But why has the media not really distributed this information? I have heard that there are 31,000,000 uninsured so many times I’m sick of hearing about it.
I suspect they don’t want to alienate guys making 45,000 and up. If one of those guys had a policy like mine, he’s suddenly being MANDATED to spend his current 3000/yr, but 8000/yr. With no subsidy. A guy making right at 45,000 is going to be hit damn hard. Higher incomes are better able to absorb it, but higher incomes are more likely to be covered by employers.
We don’t hear debate about this, though. Instead, we hear about people with pre-existing conditions who pay more for insurance than people with perfect health — as if that is somehow illogical and the result merely of corporate greed. The GOP seems to think the whole problem is caused by the woman who collected $640,000 for spilling her coffee. (After McDonald’s first refused to give her $20,000 to cover her medical costs.)
In response to another comment. See in context »they are third world idea’s you will do what I think? Never 75% say not yey obama is clueless call everone WE are under siege Please stop this now
To understand the path of HCR, imagine for a moment that Obama was instead seeking universal transportation. But in lieu of efficient, cost-effective rail and bus lines, Congress mandated employees without transport to purchase (from private dealerships) Chrysler Sebrings…at MSRP. In this analogy, Republicans advocate hitchhiking and/or riding stray dogs, Obama claims to have never liked trains in the first place, and Tom Friedman wrote a column linking transportation reform to Google, Palestine and the Winter Olympics.
indyagenda.com
obama said he would reform medicade? anyone seen any reform any new any thing squirrel here don’t eat me
Squirrel here ken lay designed capan trade you know the ENROM guy obama deny’s his pastor? an try’s to steal us our freedom his plan is communist stalin NOT america
[...] everything out of one of the parties is all lies, more lies, and fear and fear based on lies (the other party provides no more than predominantly [...]
If you are one of the five people that read my essays or blogs then you know that I am unapologetic free-enterprise Darwinist. However, I do not believe that our healthcare system should be “for profit.” Having worked for major American companies all my life, I don’t believe people are served by this model in this one area. This is my personal example.
My Father spent the last years of his life racking up a massive amount of medical bills. An endless supply of prescription drugs and emergency doctor visits ate into a lifelong worth of savings to the point where my mother’s retirement nest was at risk. My Father had spent a life time building his small estate only to lose it, pill by pill and test by test. Yes, Roosevelt’s Medicare helped but it didn’t prevent most of his income going to doctors, hospitals and medical supply companies.
And, in a bit of irony, my Father didn’t lament the money and huge profits he paid for his oxygen tanks and care-giving services. After all, America was built on a free enterprise system so if people were willing to pay top dollar for this new medical treatment or that one, it was simply the forces of supply and demand. But since my Father’s passing, we his children are left with the residual as my Mother now does not have sufficient money to remain retired. And, this isn’t because my Father didn’t work hard enough or he was lazy, this was because the health industry knows that people like my Father will pay to stay alive for 2 or 3 weeks more and they exploit and grow rich on it. In fact, they are no different than Goldman Sachs or Citibank.
With that said, I am against the bill because there is no public option and because President Obama made a deal with the devil (Insurance companies & Big Pharma) when he originally sold the bill. And, despite that everyone knows that this is true — and it’s disgusting — somehow it’s still okay because at least we have a bill. Don’t you see that is the same type of thinking that got us into our current mess? Let’s stop accepting mediocrity. Let’s continue to strive for the promise that freedom includes freedom from being exploited.
And, I am against any new taxes (and there a ton in this bill) that don’t exist in the tax code so people can determine exactly how much they need to prepare for. Our tax code needs to be simplified (by like 10,000 times), not made more complicated.
While I don’t know how this will all end for President Obama, I am reminded of the old saying, “be careful of what you wish for, because you may get it.”
Birthers may or may not do their research, but the quoted material from Judge David Kithil does not appear anywhere in the document. He might be working off an earlier version, or one in his imagination.
[...] Originally Posted by mikecentola Saw this on another forum…. It's a hoax. Repeating BS over and over doesn't eliminate the smell – it is still BS At Least Birthers Do Homework – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant [...]
[...] on the common ground of accepted fact (Darwinian evolution, the human role in global warming, the Actual Contents of Obama’s healthcare bill) and is guided, at its best, by the questioning—and, crucially, self-questioning—spirit [...]
I know this is off topic, but couldn’t find a way to send Matt a message directly.
Has anyone read this op-ed piece yet?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html
Is it me or this Brooks has totally lost it? A right leaning libertarian talking about the virtue of happiness on society’s well being, and the role public institutions should play in working towards that? Has he completely lost it, or is he finally realized conservative ideology is dead and has now decided that he is rather a progressive?
kane, I read it after seeing your comment. It was pretty run-of-the-mill stuff for hard economic times, no? The old “money can’t buy happiness” idea. “Are rich people REALLY happy?”
Are we at the point where the “right” and “left” argue over who has claim to ancient maxims? (“‘Look before you leap’ is definitely a red state saying.” “No, you stupid liar, it’s a blue state saying!”)
In response to another comment. See in context »obama is a sepritive elitist that has no clue about america he really is like a african that took power of a good country an destroyed it
HE will see an understand we rule not him It/s so sorry that so many of them get to think they have power Alas some of you with real thinking powers must step up even if you have a shady past I like honesty so what NOW IA GOOD
Are you an American citizen? I ask because English apparently isn’t your first language. Can you provide an authenticated, original copy of your birth certificate?
What, exactly, is a “sepritive?” Is that like a separatist? Did you know that proper nouns, such as “Obama,” always begin with a capital letter? Or that if a word starts with a vowel (i.e. “African”), the article which precedes it is “an” and not “a?”
Thus your statement, “he really is like a (sic) african (sic) is wrong on (at least) two counts. What’s absolutely correct about your claim is that he really is like an African — at least the 23 chromosomes he got from his Kenyan father are.
When you refer to the president as “HE,” did you know you confer godlike status on him? In that case he would, in fact, rule us and not vice versa. On the other hand, I agree with your lament that, “It/s (sic) so sorry that so many of them (presidents?) get to think they have power,” given our previous commander-in-chief’s absolute abuse of power.
As you’re obviously concerned about the citizenship status of Obama and in denial of his legitimate birth certificate, I’m wondering: Did you bring the same standards to bear when people were asking where George W. Bush disappeared to when he was supposed to be in the Texas Air National Guard? Did you demand authenticated documentation to explain his mysterious and still-unaccounted-for absence?
Despite your assertion to the contrary, many of us do have “real thinking powers.” That’s why Obama is president and not the cranky two-faced dude from Arizona. Our cognitive skills are also reflected in part by our ability to communicate clearly and effectively in our native language. Mine’s English. What’s yours?
They’re also reflected by our ability to distinguish a real lie (Bush’s military service) from a phony one (Obama’s birth certificate).
If you want to hate Obama because he’s black, why not just man up and do it? The birther shit just makes you look stupid: and the manner in which you express your stupidity just makes you look ignorant, which you are of course.
In response to another comment. See in context »