I switched Update Day to Sunday. It is just a more relaxing day. So coming up Sunday kick back and share your life with us. Today we are talking healthcare reform. Myths vs. Reality. On of the papers I read daily is the USA Today. I also go their online site www.usatoday.com , which is a great site for news.
Paraphrased from the print edition of THE USA TODAY, Monday, August 3, 2009, in an article titled “Health Care Legislation: What’s True, What’s not.”
CLAIM:: Senator Jim DeMint - R from South Carolina was quoted as saying “People are starting to figure out that the president is on record, Congressman Rangel’s on record as wanting a single-payer government system in America."
THE FACTS: A single-payer system is when a single entry such as the government acts as a sole insurer, collecting fees from patients and paying medical providers. None of the bills written by the Democratic-controlled committees include a single-payer system. However, House Speaker Pelosi has said she will allow a floor vote on an amendment that would establish one. President Obama is against the single-payer system because he thinks it would destroy the economy.
CLAIM: Overhauling healthcare will not expand the federal deficit over the long term/. President Obama has pledged that “health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade.”
THE FACTS: President Obama’s pledge does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase Medicare fees for doctors. Beyond that, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill lacks mechanisms to bring health care costs under control. Budget experts warn of accounting gimmicks that could mask burdens of on the deficit, The bipartisan Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget says those include back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10 years and beyond.
CLAIM: The House bill “may start us down a treacherous path toward government encouraged euthanasia.” House Republican leader John Boehner was quoted as saying. Former Lt. Government of New York. Betsy McCaughey, was quoted as saying “One troubling provision of the House Bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years about alternatives for end of life care.”
THE FACTS: The bill would require Medicare to pay for advance directive consultations with health care professionals. It would not require anyone to use the benefit. Advance Directives lay out a patient's wishes for life-extending measures under various scenarios involving terminal illness and severe braindamage. Patients and their families would consult with health professionals not government agents “if” they used the proposed benefit.
CLAIM: Americans won’t have to change doctors or insurance companies. President Obama said “If you like your plan and your doctor , you won’t have to do a thing. You keep your plan; you keep your doctor.”
THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor. But some tax provisions might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Depending on how those tax provisions are written it might make their employees, if their employer dropped the plan, to move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctor.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about healthcare reform as it is currently written. I do think the current system stinks. Healthcare is way to expensive, the insurance plans often way to confusing, the excuses like not covering pre-existing condition discriminatory, and often excuses for not covering alternative care troubling. I think we can as a nation do better to take care of our ill and elderly. I’m just not sure the current reform ideas are the right way to go. How do you feel?
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12 comments:
The health care bill is so long that I don't know that anybody can absorb it all. Having worked for years in the health field and dealt with insurance companies as well as those who have no insurance, I'm willing to try any thing that purports to improve the current system.
Those who don't want "government" making health care decisions for them don't realize that untrained insurance agents, who only want to hold costs to a minimum are now making those decisions. Can government be any worse?
As for that "kill the old people" provision, that is the most ridiculous scare tactic I've heard. EVERYONE should have a health care directive, even if they are in their 20s. Insurance companies won't pay for consultations with a doctor to help guide people through the lengthy health care directive form and all this does it is allow people to meet with their doctor to make those decisions.
I hate this whole thing. I especially hate the gangs that are preventing town hall meetings from giving voters information that can help them understand the provisions of the plan.
Hi Bev
Medicare is actually more economically ran than most non-government systesm. Right now the kind of care you get is depending on profit instead of the kind of care you really need.
I also hate the attacks that just outright lies. Lies for ideology and political gain.
Of course the bill could be better written and less confusing and more easy for the normal dude or woman to understand. That is why I am not sure I am really for healthcare reform as it is currently written.
And I completely agree with you that everyone that is the age of majority should have an advance directive!
Bill
I agree with Bev, and I worked in the health field for many years, too. Almost anything we do is likely to improve the system. The claim that we have the "best health care in the world" and that it's not rationed is a cruel joke.
"They" say that government works will decide what treatment you get and what doctors you can see. Just who decides that now? Your insurance company and some minimum-wage clerk does.
If you don't want a government, single-payer system, you certainly don't want to go on Medicare.
Hi Mary Z
I agree wuth you that almost anything would be an improvement.
But I am not sure what scares me the most not having healthcare reform or the deficit.
Bill
I find it very difficult to support any reform plan that cannot be explained in such a way that most of us can understand how it will work, and what it will mean to us, to our families, to our children and grandchildren, to the economy, and to the size and scope of government. Surely Mr. Obama and his team can accomplish such an objective, if they want to.
Moreover, I am highly skeptical that the United States government is able to run any such system with any serious degree of efficiency or excellence, without causing a nightmare of bureaucratic nonsense and waste. The cost will undoubtedly rise forever. Every aspect of it will become and remain political fodder, and we will long for the good old days when we took care of this ourselves.
The tens of millions of illegal aliens bankrupting the health care system is being completely ignored in all of the rhetoric about "reform." As long as that is true, I find little or no credibility in it.
Finally, I am highly skeptical of a plan championed by a leader who resorts to accusations of "far right extremism" in attempting to fend off questions and challenges by ordinary citizens, trying to be informed, and trying to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens, fathers and mothers.
Besides that, I'm all for it!
One more observation. If you are "all for" the currently proposed "plan", then you will tend to see townhall meetings as full of "gangs" preventing voters from "getting information." However, if you are skeptical (and I cannot see how anyone could NOT be skeptical), then you will tend to see townhalls as a process of honest people asking honest questions, not wanting to be steamrollered by politicians who don't even bother to read the bills they pass.
First, I agree with Bev and Mary Z. right down the line, without qualification, so I'll try not to repeat what they said.
Under "The Facts", the article said: "President Obama is against the single-payer system because he thinks it would destroy the economy."
I question this statement. I think Obama hasn't put forth a single payer plan because he knows Congresscritters are too much in the pockets of the insurance companies and such a plan will never be approved. I think it'll come eventually, but not in my lifetime.
What we MUST get out of all this is a public option. Whether that's allowing younger people into Medicare or some other public plan, it's the most important part of any reform. Without that, perhaps there will be minor improvements, but the insurance companies will still have the upper hand and nothing much will change.
To Russ, regarding townhall meetings: I'm all for them, if they can be conducted with civility. What I am NOT all for is busing in groups who only shout down participants and chant slogans, drowning out any meaningful discourse. This is happening all over the country. Nobody gets any information that way, and information is what is sorely needed regarding healthcare reform plans.
Hi Russ
Nice to see you here but respectfully I have to disagree with you.
I am all for town hall meetings where everyone has their say and can legitimately heard. I am not for paid protesters coming to town hall meetings with sole putpose of disrupting the meetings so nobody can here anyone.
And afer eight years of wrongfully hearing of the liberal media (80% of the media is owned by the five largest conributers to the Republican Party) and hearing about all those liberals (anything that starts with "all those" is by definition wrong) it is nice to see someone standing up for us and against the other side.
Bill
Hi Pat
I'm certainly not going to question the staff of The USA Today. They took the quote from one of his guest appearances on one of the news shows.
I do agree with you that the insurance companies have the Congresscritters in their pockets. Both Democrats and Republicans alike.
As much as Medicare is criticized there have been surveys that it is the best managed insurance plan out there. I agree we have to have a public option. The key word to me is option vs. requirement.
Bill
Bill, I'm like you and Bev and others -- the bill is so long and so convoluted, it's almost impossible to understand. And who know what little "goodies" get added in and taken out every time it goes to committee?
The current system isn't working. Everyone agrees on that. I haven't worked in healthcare, but I've sure had plenty of experience with Walt's cancer, Al's heart attack and the last five years with Mom. In '85, with Walt, we had few issues/problems, even though we were dealing with the VA to cover hospital and other expenses. Whole 'nother story in '97, when Himself had the heart attack and insurance monitored every procedure, pill and such. Hasn't improved since then. And I'm with Bev on the fact that at the moment clerical personnel are making decisions on our health care and often overriding doctor's recommendations, which irritates me no end. Also agree on the scare tactics on euthanasa and the fact that everyone should have a medical directive (something we need to take care of!)Al & I know each other's wishes but, without a legal directive, those can be overturned.
Also interesting that Medicare is run relatively efficiently. So far (knocking wood) every doctor recommended to us has taken Medicare and so long as Medicare pays, the supplemental insurance pays for Mom and Himself. And our doctors are pretty sure of what Medicare will pay or they check first.
I agree with Pat that one of the biggest roadblocks is the insurance industry and all the money their lobbyists spend. They want their profits, just as the pharmeceuticals want big bucks and the average person's needs are the least of their concerns.
Russ, welcome to the blog. I agree it would be nice to see something in simple English, basic points made, bulleted explanations, qualifications and exceptions, along with an understandable and realistic budget projection. Such a concept seems to escape all the PTB. I'm also a bit concerned about the costs expended on caring for illegal aliens, most of whom use our ERs as their primary care doctors, at least in this area.
Something needs to be done, but I want more information than I currently have before I can get behind the current reform plan. Regardless of how many sources you check, you get bits and pieces and it all is the interpretation of whomever offers the "explanation," whether pro or con.
Hi Russ
I forgot even though our opinions are different I would love to have you post here more often to give both another male's viewpoint and the opposing view.
You can trust that you will have both opinions that agree with you and those that don't here. But you will always be treated with respect by the posters here.
And everyone this is the man that I wrote about on the blog several months ago that I reconnected with through Facebook. The one that directed this lost soul out of the doldrums into a happier life!
Hi DR
While I think some government reports get a bad rap I have no doubt that congress can take something easy to understand and come out with a document the size of War And Peace. I remember several years ago when The Tax Reconciliation Act of 1986 came out. The law itself was 500 pages, the explanation of the law was 1,500 pages, the technial correction act was 2,000 pages and the explanation of the technical corrections act 2,500 pages. I see that happening with the healthcare bill. I also worry about pork being attached to it.
With Mom's numerous health problems Blue Cross-Blue Shield has actually been pretty good to her.
However, from clients I hear numerous horror stories. We need to get away from clerks making health care decisions to medical personnel making them.
Now get your arse in gear and get that advanced directive done!
Bill
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