If you're SICK of the MJ coverage, let's talk Health Care :)

[BLUSH]

Eleanor Clift

Short of the Magic
Right now, Democrats don't have the 60 votes needed to enact health-care reform.

Jun 26, 2009

After playing nice for months, insurance companies, health-care providers, and pharmaceuticals are suiting up for battle. Dr. Steven Pribut, a Washington podiatrist, was on the elliptical at the gym when he heard former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich on one of the cable networks denounce a public option in his typically apocalyptic fashion. Nobody challenged him, so Pribut says he poked around on the Internet to learn more about Gingrich's expertise on the topic. He discovered that Gingrich was the founder of a health-reform organization that has as its members more than 20 large corporations, including GlaxoSmithKline and UnitedHealthcare. Pribut was moved to post an item on his blog suggesting that those making pronouncements should disclose their conflicts. (In the spirit of disclosure, I should say here that I get orthotics from Dr. Pribut.)

Pribut supports a public option as a way to set a minimal standard and put pressure on the insurance industry to conform to that standard without deception. Right now, competition too often means looking for ways to exclude people. Pribut calls insurers "holding companies—they hold patients' money and withhold payments they should be making." But he's not calling for their elimination; he thinks there's much they can do to make their services more attractive and add value for many people.

At the White House, policymakers envision a public option that would coexist with private insurers in the same way that UPS and FedEx compete with the post office, or the way that 401(k)s supplement Social Security. There would still be a vibrant private marketplace. White House support for a public option is strong. It's the political will that's uncertain.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/204159


If you're not sick of the MJ coverage -- I admit I'm still watching the news specials -- let's still talk health care.

Yes we can ... multi-task!

:)

[area51]

1. K&R

For the 273 people who will die today because healthcare isn't a right in the U.S..

Saves money, saves lives -- that's single-payer healthcare. Find out more by clicking on the link by the Physicians for a National Health Plan.

[Delphinus]

6. This figure should be what

all those in favor of HR 676 (or a Single Payer Universal Health Care System) should be using. When I read it the first time, I wrote to Healthcare-NOW! and asked them why they weren't using this number. No response.

[caffefwee]

17. Health Kare Kick!

:kick:

[angrycarpenter]

2. I've been on a couple of other boards lately debating health care reform

with the conservative egocentric jerks who live there. Every forum I have looked at lately seems to have a couple of guys who have a wealth of links at their disposal to support their positions and keep saying the same scare tactics over and over effectively shutting down all discussion on the subject.

I know most forums are small potatoes but could the medical lobby be paying these people? The same couple of guys seem to have remarkably similar talking points and they hover over every thread all day and night dominating the discussion with misinformation and accusations of socialism and making it impossible to carry on a conversation on the subject.

These people are prepared to play dirty. As no reform is not an option, I say that everyone in Washington not willing to give on this subject be shut out of the conversation. The enemies of reform need to be frog walked to the door and put outside, they should have no place at the table when it comes to health care reform. Screw bipartisanship, after arguing with those jerks for the last few days I no longer care what the people on the other side of this issue thinks.

[bobbolink]

3. "Could the Medical Lobby be paying these people?"

We'd be very surprised if they weren't!!!

This is my disappointment with PNHP----they should be all over these astro-turf jobs, and have the TRUE info at hand!

[BLUSH]

7. I erred. It was CBS, not NBC. Here's a link

Be More Like Britain
Sat Jun 27 16:40:23 PDT 2009

As U.S Congress works on health care reform, critics point to Britain's government, who has provided healthcare for decades. Elizabeth Palmer reports the 'prescriptions for change.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5118944n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea;cbsnewsMainColumnArea.0


The doctor's name is Karol Sikora.

[BLUSH]

5. NBC News just did a report on Health Care in Great Britain

In articles and ads, conservative groups in America are quoting a renowned British doctor who has raised concerns about Britain's system. But what the conservative groups aren't saying in these ads and articles is that the doctor has said, despite some problems, the British system is BETTER than ours.

I don't remember this doctor's name but I'm searching NBC online for the story they just did.

[Cleita]

8. There is going to be so much biased reporting and astroturf spread in these

coming months we are all going to have rug burn from it.

[BLUSH]

13. Obama needs to put together a "health care war room" to take on

the assault of lies that's coming.

[msongs]

4. recent events indicate that having lots of money is not a guarantee of having great health care nt

[Cleita]

9. Yes, and that would be our system which is the most expensive in the world. n/t

[BLUSH]

12. Merica has the best health care in the world

Why do you hate freedom?

Fuzzy math!

Heh heh

[Cleita]

10. One way to get rid of them is for everyone on private plans to discontinue them

and put them out of business. How about shuttles to Canada and Mexico to get basic health care instead until those insurers and pharmaceutical companies shrivel up and die?

[notesdev]

11. I'm sick of health care too

Ever since Obama hired an industry lobbyist to be his point person on the issue, I've pretty much given up hope that anything good will come of it.

[Zavulon]

14. Same here.

I'm convinced that the options most DUers seem to want are the type that the government isn't capable of handling and would screw up in the worst way. I'm honestly hoping nothing gets done any time soon, because I'm really bothered by the current tendency of rushing through bills without giving people the chance to read them. Rushed bills are bad bills.

[BLUSH]

15. You surely didn't expect this was going to be easy.

Obama has said it himself, on many issues:

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

-- Barack Obama

[BLUSH]

16. The Truth About the Insurance Industry

The Truth About the Insurance Industry

by Ezra Klein

The industry ... is driven by "two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical-benefit ratio, as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits."

Think about that term for a moment: The industry literally has a term for how much money it "loses" paying for health care.

The issue isn't that insurance companies are evil. It's that they need to be profitable. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for shareholders. And as Potter explains, he's watched an insurer's stock price fall by more than 20 percent in a single day because the first-quarter medical-loss ratio had increased from 77.9 percent to 79.4 percent.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/the_truth_about_the_insurance.html

[BLUSH]

18. Let them fillibuster

by DeanDemocrat

To that I say let them fillibuster. And here is why. If the Health Care plan is not going to pass, and will in fact be withdrawn because of a Republican fillibuster, there is only one way to win in the long run. Force the Republicans to put their votes where their mouths are. Make them fillibuster. Make them go on record as opposing heath care reform.

Watering down the plan to get Republican support won't help the uninsured. It won't help those in need. It will only serve to feed the egos of Conservative obstructionists. We cannot afford to sell out the needs of the American people to score bi-partisan brownie points in Washington D.C. Especially when meaningful Health Care reform can always be revisited and probably passed in 2011.

Sure, if the fillibuster succeeds the Republicans will claim victory in the short term, but come November 2010 the Democrats will have a unifying theme of progress versus obstruction during the Midterm election. The filibuster of Health Care reform will serve as a symbol of obstructionism, a prime example of Democrats standing with the people and Republicans standing with Big Pharmaceutical Companies.

more

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/28/747898/-Let-them-fillibuster.-