Healthcare Debate: As Supreme Court Hears Landmark Case, Does Law Do Enough to Fix Health Crisis?

[ProSense]

Healthcare Debate: As Supreme Court Hears Landmark Case, Does Law Do Enough to Fix Health Crisis?

<...>

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, I want to say, our organization, Physicians for a National Health Program, did not take a position on the Supreme Court deliberations. Some of the members opposed the mandate and did weigh in in the amicus brief. Some were more ambivalent and felt that there was some good in the bill. What we all agree on, however, is that the bill is not a solution. It will leave 27 million Americans uninsured when it’s fully implemented. It’s going to leave tens of millions of Americans woefully underinsured, with gaps in their coverage like copayments and deductibles, so they’ll still be bankrupted by illness. And it’s not going to control cost. So we still need single-payer national health insurance regardless of what happens at the Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you care if the Supreme Court were to reject it, say the individual mandate is not constitutional?

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, the individual mandate is a very, very bad idea. The good parts of the bill are things like a Medicaid expansion, which does not require an individual mandate, some regulations on the insurance industry, which does not require a mandate. All of those could have been done without the mandate. The problem with the mandate is it’s telling people that they have to turn over their money to the private health insurance industry. There’s also $447 billion in taxpayer money that is going to be turned over to the private health insurance industry. So the bill is strengthening the position of the private health insurance industry, the very industry that’s responsible for $380 billion in wasted healthcare dollars on bureaucracy and paperwork.

<...>

AMY GOODMAN: The Supreme Court decision is being closely followed by many who say they could benefit from the law. Robyn Martin is a mother of a seven-month-old son who suffers from a serious heart condition.

ROBYN MARTIN: We need the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act, because we need this little boy to continue to have healthcare without having to worry about hitting a limit, without having to add up each one of our visits to see how close we’re going to get to an arbitrary limit that a health insurance company sets for us.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Woolhandler, what do you say to people like Robyn Martin?

DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, we definitely need the universal healthcare. ’Til we get there, we need guaranteed issue, we need community rating. But all of those things could be done without the mandate. There was community rating in this country for decades when I was growing up, which means that everybody pays the same insurance premium and—under Blue Cross, when I was growing up. So we do not need the individual mandate in order to have these things, and we did not need to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars to the private health insurance industry to get those helpful parts of the legislation.

- more -

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/27/healthcare_debate_as_supreme_court_hears

Obviously the case is made that the bill didn't do enough, but the point is that there is good in the bill and some of PNHP members support it.

[zipplewrath]

1. There is also bad in it.

It's more than it didn't do enough, it did "bad" things too. It also expended a tremendous amount of political time and capital on some regulatory changes that can be undone by a republican administration and a cooperative congress.

And it displaced the progressive goals of health CARE reform.

As she says, there was so much that could be accomplished WITHOUT the mandate. Heck, Rahm wanted to accomplish most of this piece meal without all the wasted time and effort. ACA probably put Scott Brown in a senate seat.

[ProSense]

2. So

It's more than it didn't do enough, it did "bad" things too. It also expended a tremendous amount of political time and capital on some regulatory changes that can be undone by a republican administration and a cooperative congress.

...the argument is that it can be undone? Glass-Steagall was repealed. Unless you're planning on installing a dictator, you have no control over future Presidents and Congresses.

[zipplewrath]

3. The argument is that it wasn't "worth it"

It wasn't worth mandates. It wasn't worth the time and political capital. It wasn't worth a senate seat. All the "good" that was accomplished could have been accomplished without all of that time, effort, and capital and without saddling us with a mandate that is of dubious need and now may be the undoing of all that was accomplished, both good and bad.

[ProSense]

4. Right

"The argument is that it wasn't 'worth it'"

...ensuring that fewer deaths than 44,000 people who die every year without insurance isn't "worth it."

A few people, including Alan Grayson, would take issue with that claim.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002477239 (scroll down)

[zipplewrath]

6. As compared to what

The 44,000 could have been "saved" without the expediture of poolitical captial and time, without losing the senate seat, and without mandates, which was the point the person was making in the original post that YOU posted AND highlighted.


But keep pushing your logical fallacy of the false dichotomy.

[ProSense]

8. Yeah

"The 44,000 could have been 'saved' without the expediture of poolitical captial and time, without losing the senate seat, and without mandates, which was the point the person was making in the original post that YOU posted AND highlighted."

...they'll be "saved" by going back to the old system. They would have been "saved" if only we realized that doing something wasn't "worth it."

Ludicrous!

[zipplewrath]

10. Again with the false dichotomy

No one was advocating doing nothing. They were advocating NOT having a mandate. They were advocating that EVERYONE get health CARE. Rahm himself was arguing that everything they were changing could be achieved in pieces over roughly the same period of time WITHOUT the expenditure of political capital and legislative TIME. Not to mention a senate seat and the loss of control of the house.

[ProSense]

11. You appear

No one was advocating doing nothing. They were advocating NOT having a mandate. They were advocating that EVERYONE get health CARE. Rahm himself was arguing that everything they were changing could be achieved in pieces over roughly the same period of time WITHOUT the expenditure of political capital and legislative TIME. Not to mention a senate seat and the loss of control of the house.

...to have strayed from your original point: The argument is that it wasn't "worth it."

[zipplewrath]

13. Right

It wasn't worth all of the political capital, time, effort, and resultant political losses when it as little as was achieved could have been done WITHOUT all of that loss.

[GeorgeGist]

5. So ...

What we all agree on, however, is that the bill is not a solution. It will leave 27 million Americans uninsured when it’s fully implemented. It’s going to leave tens of millions of Americans woefully underinsured, with gaps in their coverage like copayments and deductibles, so they’ll still be bankrupted by illness. And it’s not going to control cost. So we still need single-payer national health insurance regardless of what happens at the Supreme Court.

you missed the point!

[ProSense]

7. No

I didn't: "Obviously the case is made that the bill didn't do enough, but the point is that there is good in the bill and some of PNHP members support it."

The point is that not doing enough is not the same as doing nothing. Not doing enough doesn't mean go backward. Not doing enough means that more has to be done.

You missed the point.

[zipplewrath]

9. More like avoid

You'll note that ACA supporters can see no shortcomings, and in fact constantly assert that the law does things that it does not. They assert it is universal and that it ensures health care to everyone. It does neither. They also ignore that health CARE costs will continue to rise at 7% per year for the foreseable future.

It provided insurance to between 7-12% of the population. Roughly half of them already qualified for government assistance in obtaining health care. Some will recieve it from their employer where they didn't before. Some will be covered by an expansion of medicaid. And some will be mandated to purchase it, with many getting government subsidies to support the purchase. (16 million will be subject to the mandate).

It did very little to control the cost of health CARE which is why the White House admits to the continued unsustainable rate of inflation of health CARE costs. It left us with a system which will become unaffordable for the vast majority of us within 10-15 years. And it established health insurance as an individual obligation, and health CARE as an option for the government to ensure that anyone actually receive.

[ProSense]

12. Your arguments

"You'll note that ACA supporters can see no shortcomings"

...are nothing but obfuscations, red herrings and straw men. You can't even follow your own logic.

[zipplewrath]

14. Just facts

It doesn't do the major things that are being claimed that it does. If that's an "obsfucation" you've really gotten desperate to defend this law. First you have to claim it does things it doesn't. Then when that's pointed out, it's an "obsfucation".