The word Tuesday night is that the Senate Democrats have, indeed, reached
a compromise agreement on a health care reform bill. If true, as it seems, it means there will be final version passed quite soon and signed into law.
What's actually IN the bill will leave a lot to be desired. But we knew that already. The info that has leaked so far is that the already anemic "public option" has been further sliced down if not eliminated but has been replaced by a sort of public option by another name -- extension of Medicare down to people age 55 or over. In fact, it might be a stronger public option than the public option.
As I've been saying about every iteration of this bill up to now, something is better than nothing. So, we will have something, it seems, in spite of the best efforts of donkeys like Leiberman, Lincoln, and others to ball the whole thing up.
Any extension of Medicare is good. All of a sudden offering it to those 55 or over is, however, senseless. Why not down to age 50? Or 40? Or to everybody -- which would make a lot of sense.
Just one more symptom of a diseased political system in which life and death policies are decided upon by partisan and opportunistic criteria instead of with common sense and for the common good.
The plusses: Medicare works. It is
relatively inexpensive when purchased on a premium basis. It will eventually be subsidized for some. It will come into effect for the new tier of Baby Boomers next year and not four years from now.
The Minuses: it's not at all clear yet how the lower income uninsured will get coverage. There is very little visible here that will begin to lower costs for the 85% of us who are already insured. The extension of Medicare down to 55 year-olds will greatly benefit private insurance companies by sopping up a more elderly, more infirm, more costly cohort.
Lots of people I know are very emotional about this. They are feeling angry, betrayed, disappointed and let down. I have to say I'm rather emotionally flat about it all. I have never considered either the Democratic Party or the U.S. Senate to be agents of change. While this reform is, on the slim side, it's almost a minor miracle that it is happening at all. At least the door to national health care is on the verge of being cracked open and maybe our kids will eventually finish the job. Maybe.
It has been depressing, however, to watch this whole process. Indeed, there's one image I can't get out of my mind when thinking about the way Congress is delivering health care. If you are squeamish or prudish, read no further.
I see a big, bloated, obese, nude cartoonish image of a man sitting on a toilet. He's overstuffed with cash and greed. Overstuffed and constipated. He sits on the john for a long stretch of time, struggling, groaning, and sweating to "pass" a piece of crucial legislation. After a titanic battle with his backed-up system, he finally, finally, squeezes out a few pellets and he sighs with relief as they splash in the bowl.
Voila! The system works!
Neon Tommy | Promote Your Page Too
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The word Tuesday night is that the Senate Democrats have, indeed, reached a compromise agreement on a health care reform bill. If true, as it seems, it means there will be final version passed quite soon and signed into law.
What's actually IN the bill will leave a lot to be desired. But we knew that already. The info that has leaked so far is that the already anemic "public option" has been further sliced down if not eliminated but has been replaced by a sort of public option by another name -- extension of Medicare down to people age 55 or over. In fact, it might be a stronger public option than the public option.
As I've been saying about every iteration of this bill up to now, something is better than nothing. So, we will have something, it seems, in spite of the best efforts of donkeys like Leiberman, Lincoln, and others to ball the whole thing up.
Any extension of Medicare is good. All of a sudden offering it to those 55 or over is, however, senseless. Why not down to age 50? Or 40? Or to everybody -- which would make a lot of sense.
Just one more symptom of a diseased political system in which life and death policies are decided upon by partisan and opportunistic criteria instead of with common sense and for the common good.
The plusses: Medicare works. It is relatively inexpensive when purchased on a premium basis. It will eventually be subsidized for some. It will come into effect for the new tier of Baby Boomers next year and not four years from now.
The Minuses: it's not at all clear yet how the lower income uninsured will get coverage. There is very little visible here that will begin to lower costs for the 85% of us who are already insured. The extension of Medicare down to 55 year-olds will greatly benefit private insurance companies by sopping up a more elderly, more infirm, more costly cohort.
Lots of people I know are very emotional about this. They are feeling angry, betrayed, disappointed and let down. I have to say I'm rather emotionally flat about it all. I have never considered either the Democratic Party or the U.S. Senate to be agents of change. While this reform is, on the slim side, it's almost a minor miracle that it is happening at all. At least the door to national health care is on the verge of being cracked open and maybe our kids will eventually finish the job. Maybe.
It has been depressing, however, to watch this whole process. Indeed, there's one image I can't get out of my mind when thinking about the way Congress is delivering health care. If you are squeamish or prudish, read no further.
I see a big, bloated, obese, nude cartoonish image of a man sitting on a toilet. He's overstuffed with cash and greed. Overstuffed and constipated. He sits on the john for a long stretch of time, struggling, groaning, and sweating to "pass" a piece of crucial legislation. After a titanic battle with his backed-up system, he finally, finally, squeezes out a few pellets and he sighs with relief as they splash in the bowl.
Voila! The system works!
Neon Tommy | Promote Your Page Too
December 8th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
“Just one more symptom of a diseased political system in which life and death policies are decided upon by partisan and opportunistic criteria instead of with common sense and for the common good.” Marc, I believe that started at the constitutional convention, though I could argue that it started at Jamestown.
I heard an advocate of health care reform say in an interview the other day that we should be building monuments to Obama, Pelosi and Reid–that FDR was afraid to try for health care reform, and that Truman, Clinton, and even Nixon tried and failed. Not much? I agree. Better than nothing? I agree. But if all that you say about the system is true, that we are this far along is, sadly and happily, monumental.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:14 am
“After a titanic battle with his backed-up system, he finally, finally, squeezes out a few pellets and he sighs with relief as they splash in the bowl.”
Thanks for sharing….
Incidently, I am supporting this legislation, but with a lot of disappointment in how dumbed down it has become.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I detest Ben Nelson, but I blame him on the voters of Nebraska (and the truth is that Mike Johanna, his GOP counterpart, isn’t even in the game.) But Joe Lieberman doesn’t even have the excuse of being a moron pandering to his electorate. His cynicism runs very deep and is fine-tuned. After about a dozen episodes of watching this jerk degrade and debase an already polluted political landscape, I’m determined to give some modest assistance to anyone out to defeat him. The sick thing is that Holy Joe is at that point in his career when a political defeat is also probably in his own best interests and he’ll resort to becoming a multi-millionaire directly servicing as a high-paid lobbyist the special interests he’s currently running interference for as a Senator. It’s appalling, but at the least I want the wrinkly little bastard off of my TeeVee.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Yeah, was catching the breaking news on Maddow last night. She had Rendell and Sanders on both making sense of the possible proposal of extending Medicare and expanding Medicaid– which actually sounds better than whatever the so called public option actually was.
I am still waiting to know what the “buy in” premium rate to Medicare would be for those under 65. And still have never understood what the premium rates would have been under a public option.
Michael Crosby maybe knows??????
But the big objection to it all seems that there is still this goofy idea that the governement should administer a “non profit” health care bureau that offers choices from the for profit sector and that the elephant in the room is still the insurance industry licking its lips, pee pee and smiling like a Cheshire cat.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:39 am
the biggest reason Medicare works so well is that it’s *not* optional. Everyone over 65 is in the same risk pool. Allowing an optional buy in will sink it, as sick people buy in but healthy people buy cheaper risk-underwritten policies from private companies.
Next time around, Medicare, for people under 65, will be prohibitively expensive because of optional buy in. It will be harder for us to point to it as an example. It’s a terrible idea.
Medicare for everyone over 55 would be a compromise. Destroying the economics of Medicare is just one more payoff to the insurance companies.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I kinda had the same thought (or fear) as Mr. X. Wouldn’t a Medicare opt-in lever potentially just drive up the numbers of the economically stressed to marginal participants? Systems set up for the poor often become poor systems, no?
As for the government managing a non-profit insurance provider, well, it works. Think Switzerland. But there’s a hugh difference with the Swiss compared to what is being proposed here. All of the insurance in Switzerland is regulated by the government. It’s essentially 100% non-profit. How is it going to work in the U.S. where there’d be a single provider under government regs, while the rest operate on a market, for-profit motive?
Paging Michael Crosby….
December 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I think the whole public option proposal has been fraught with this problem of it becoming a “ghetto” for folks the insurance companies don’t want. Although the danger exists with the age 55 buy-in to Medicare, I think it will be more likely to become a very popular alternative for folks at that age. At 55 most people want affordable full coverage, unlike people in their 20s and even 30s who will opt for less coverage. It also gives people age 55 options for self-employment or a career change that they might not be willing to take if they’re clinging to a job with benefits and know that an individual package would be very high at that age. It might be better for there to simply be subsidies for the rest than a public-option ghetto would draw mostly people without alternatives. Not sure about this, but my bet is that this will be a large expansion of the Medicare pool to actually include more relatively healthy people, which is likely a good thing.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:18 am
However Rube Goldberg the product and maddening the process, this legislation IS establishing a principle of health care coverage as something roughly equivalent to a regulated public utility – an essential social service to which everyone deserves reasonable access, and not simply on an emergency basis.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Gee, ya think a Cleveland Clinic visit will be covered under Medicare?
December 9th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Reg, Bob Carrey (sp.?) won election after election in Nebraska…
December 9th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Appearing by popular demand….
I really am not clear how the present iteration of Medicare works, particularly the “premium” aspect. Under regular old Medicare, a visit to Cleveland Clinic would be covered, but unless the clinic “accepts assignment” from Medicare [that is, accept the amount Medicare would pay then call it a day], it would bill the patient for the substantial unreimbursed balance. If the patient couldn’t pay that–after forking over the eldest offspring–the clinic would “write off” the unpaid balance and effectively add that on to the price of aspirin and tissues (I’m boycotting Kleenex) for everyone else. What many/most Medicare-eligibles did to retain rights to the offspring was to purchase a Medicare supplement policy from a private insurer. The premiums for the two coverages together (Medicare and the private supplement) was usually still a relatively good deal.
X and Rob G are asking the right questions, and reg’s point is well taken. The coexistence of for-profit and not-for-profit doesn’t seem so difficult to me. That is what we had from the end of WWII to the late 80s. The largest non-governmental insurer in that time was Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Those were private but non-profit collectives that finally got so big that they were targets of purchase offers from Wellpoint and other for-profit entities. The focus of the founders of the Blues for the first decade or so was signing up doctors who would agree to accept a fair payment–set by a board of member-doctors–for various services and procedures. That and “community rating” [sort of the opposite of what we now call 'red-lining'] were the keys to making excellent medical care available to the great postwar middle class, and to much of the working poor.
But BC/BS became too pricey and inefficient, and ultimately the private insurers–who had focused on either life insurance or “dollar-a-week” accident/disability policies–entered the picture as competitors. There is no reason the Blues could not have made sufficient improvements to stay alive, over time. I’m not sure what my point is, but had the Reagan-era SEC and DOJ not ignored the anti-competitive aspects of the Blue buyouts, we would probably still have a workable for-profit/not-for-profit/government mix in the health insurance biz.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I am really anxious to see some legislation passed soon so that the Obama HHS, DOL etc can set about the task of building the infrastructure for this most massive of governmental programs immediately. Obama believes in government’s ability to do the people’s work. His commitment and ability to energize federal workers may end up being the saving grace for health care reform. That, and the fact that most hospital administrators and doctors know the center is not holding, are the greatest reasons for optimism that real reform can result from this assuredly grotesque process.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
THanks, Michael.
Very instructive about BC/BS. Always wondered what happened with them.
My sister uses the 160 something a month AARP supplement that covers the 20% Medicare doesn’t pay. I was just gabbling with her about it all today and realized in the US we have less of a deduction to cover our SS benefit and guaranteed healthcare when we reach 65 than what I was paying per month in England (about 160 pm) for my NHS contribution. It dawned on me this was mad that for how little we pay in in return we get a Soc Sec check PLUS healthcare!!! Up until 65 then most are stiffed and then those that don’t have the type of jobs that allow for stability over long periods of time/benefits etc or work independently won’t get much of a benefit– but do get some health care….eventually.
Its soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo crazy the way Americans apportion their funds.
So instead up til one is in one’s 60′s one forks out crazy amounts for health care/insurance so a for profit vampire can blow its wad one then pays for to bail them out or the world will go bankrupt.
Boggles the mind.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
As I’ve said here, I support reform of the health care delivery system here, not any one bill. This week I got notice from Kaiser, my insurer/provider, of a $50 increase, greater than a 10% increase. Well, the report published by the Repubs on the Finance Committee said that if we supported health care reform with a public option, our private insurance premiums would go up an average of 10% or more per year.
I did; the premiums did. Those guys are stone geniuses.
December 9th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
And David, IMHO, Bob Kerrey (sp) was perhaps better than Nelson, but essentially cut from the same Blue Dog cloth. I think he’s smarter but he’s one of those Dems who always finds fault first with liberals.
December 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
It is encouraging to me that Howard Dean characterizes this latest potential compromise as “true reform.” He has been making the distinction all along between “true health care reform” and “health insurance reform.”
December 9th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Just saw this…a monument to just how stupid and disingenuous the GOP is in this health care “debate” -
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/david_vitter_and_the_advantage.html
December 9th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Marc, I think your cynicism about congress may be premature. The House GOPers are poised to pass this resolution:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;
(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and
(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.
GAMECHANGER!!!!
December 9th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
And more legislative progress:
“A House subcommittee approved a bill Wednesday that would prohibit the NCAA from dubbing its title contest a ‘national championship’ unless it switches to a playoff system.”
December 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Just read the link regarding Sen. Vitter.
Are we suppose to laugh or cry?
God save the Republic.
From itself…
December 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
You haven’t read the weirdness around Palin’s overseas journalist barred dog and pony shows where she cites the ‘In God We Trust’ inscription being put on the edge of the new dollar rather than face as a “disturbing trend’.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
That’s interesting.
You know, there’s a perfect lil’ stocking stuffer out there for that favorite tea-bagging maverick on your x-mas list: http://www.orbooks.com/
December 9th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Wow Marc! That last paragraph was doozey….Unfortunately that image is going to stick for a few daze at least.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
If the painfully expelled turds were Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, et. al., maybe all of the grunting and groaning would represent some progress.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:25 am
We should just let the market place sort this out. That is the scientific way.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:28 am
“My sister uses the 160 something a month AARP supplement that covers the 20% Medicare doesn’t pay.”
I don’t know where your sister lives Anna, but she can google Medicare Advantage with her state and take a look at potential real cost-savings. Advantage is essentially a privately run HMO for Medicare recipients, and it’s prices and available vary by state depending on competition and population in each state.
Under this private plan, Medicare pays a private HMO so much per patient, instead of per procedure like the gov’t PPO type method, to provide at least what gov’t Medicare guarantees for them. But since it is privately run, some for profit-some nonprofit, these HMOs vigoriously compete in prices they charge and/or extra benefits they offer over and above Medicare’s.
My mother was able to get free drug ins, eye, and dental at much lower cost than Medicare’s charge. In addition, she was able to get more benefits in the gory details of when, how, and how much the patient is required to begin to pay extra.
The trade-off is you must use the doctors, hospitals, and drug sources they contract with to provide medical services. In emergencies, or out-of-state/country, you are of course covered for any provider. I helped my mother move to one of these and she gets more services with much less cost.
Medicare Advantage, as well as the last entitlement add on by Washington, the drug supplement, is a classic example of the twisted stupidity of Washington at work, called POLITICS and SELF INTEREST of both politicians and their corporate donners. Instead of allowing private providers to compete with gov’t to provide Medicare services on an average gov’t cost per patient level playing field, a great idea, private Advantage was allowed to receive about 15% more per patient and further allowed to deny their Medicare plans to certain chronic conditioned patients, example diabetics.
Beyond the legal denials of service, one would have to be naive to think in a competitive enviroment, there is not subtle methods use do defacto deny Advantage to those with other conditions. This could easily be done, and I am sure it is, using method such as available medical information coupled with information found on application forms, to stop responding/marketing to certain applicants and stonewall them until they threaten legal action. Of course once you are provided Advantage services, I doubt you would see them trying to dump you. This would be just too obviously illegal.
Of course, when the gov’t is dumb. and you are accepted by an an Advantage Plan, you would be equally as dumb not to accept it. Gov’t does dumb shit all the time providing unmanaged and uncontrolled free stuff to all sorts of self-interested people like us all. Books are written and expensive ads on TV are used to make a profit off Washington dumbness by showing us just how easy it is to do it, legal or illegal, it doesn’t really matter. Why? Because they never fucking know or seem to care. Why? Because they are working hard on their next election campaign.
I have absolutely ZERO confidence this next round ‘reform’ will be properly managed, enforced, or cost controlled in any way. It’s history so far has been abysmal, and nothing has fundamentally changed to change this history. The costs on this new ‘reform’ will simply explode, just like Medicare has.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Of course, once you are one of the ‘Advantaged’, privately provided services are excellent, according to mom who has had it for over a year.
Why? Because Advantage companies COMPETE, and there are many depending on State, for lucrative business. If their doctors, hospital, drug, etc providers don’t treat you right, the provider will get feedback from the Advantage Insurer. Mom even gets calls and questioners from service providers to check on her and see if she is satisfied.
Don’t remember anything like this coming into mom from the gov’t. Why? Simple. They do not compete. They don’t try harder…..because they don’t HAVE too.
My guess is this would extend to doctors that don’t particularly need or want another gov’t supplied Medicare/Medicaid patient, on an individual basis anyway. If your nice to them and don’t complain, your likely just ‘tolerated’. This is the magic of private competition to the consumer of ANY goods or services. Their desire for your business, yes and that horrible profit payment they get for satisfying you, gives you power through their power in numbers. Your service provider has a much bigger stake in satisfying you in order to keep a thousand you’s provided to them via a likely better paying private insurance company sharing profits with their providers.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:30 am
This new ‘reform’ bill does do a couple of fundamental things to try to control cost not found in previous reform bills.
I believe the 500 Billion cut in Medicare is targeted toward removing the approx 15% ‘Advantage’ private insurers have over the gov’t Medicare. I hope there is a plug in the big ‘pre-existing conditions’ denial advantage also. Believe me, these highly profitable Advantage insurers will not go away if allowed to continue fairly with a level playing field. Why, because they will MANAGE their costs, provider fraud, patient fraud, etc etc, in a way gov’t never has and never will.
The other is this reform at least tries to get an estimate of likely cost before passing. This is a help, and I have way more confidence in CBO than the fucking politicians estimates provided in the past. But I have no confidence in gov’t to follow through to manage it once past. There will be no cost corrections/control, no fraud indictments, and no one at home at the end of the telephone to report poor service, over-charges, or out-right fraud. There is no one there excepting a computer like soothing voice thanking you for your call.
Orwells ‘Ministry of Health and Happiness”. Not your, theirs!
December 10th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Jim R – compared to private insurance, Medicare costs haven’t “exploded.” Medicare is dealing with a demographic curve and the fact that sooner or later everyone on it will get sick and die via an expensive process. But its still more cost-effective than private insurers.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Marc sees almost nothing coming from a “big, bloated, obese, nude cartoonish image of a man sitting on a toilet.” What I see coming out and served to the American public is one huge gush of diarrhea that can never be cleaned up.
To get off of healthcare for a moment, I generally liked Obama’s Nobel speech today. He stole parts of it from George W. It’s too bad that he passed up lunch with the king and didn’t get to bow to him. Today’s news: 44% prefer Bush over Obama
December 10th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Jim R…appreciate the report on the Advantage option. However, my sister won’t touch a plan that doesn’t let her choose her doctor. She has had some serious stuff to contend with and all has gone well and she has been satisfied and he AARP supplemental means she is about totally covered.
It so happens my niece is a specialist in evaluating what doctors do for insurance claims. Sometimes she has worked for a group of doctors or an HMO or for the hospital. She has carved out a weird niche that hardly anyone was doing until she started doing it. Will have to find out her view…
December 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
“Destroying the economics of Medicare is just one more payoff to the insurance companies.”
Precisely….taking out that age demographic frees up private insurance companies from covering the unhealthiest segment of the population. What do you want to bet that we won’t see any of that savings passed on to the private health care consumer? What I see are massive profits. I am probably in favor of this latest version of health care reform, but marginally. If there are any more “compromises” on the part of the Democrats, I really don’t care what happens to it.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
And Reg -
I live less than an hour away from Nebraska, here in the state of Kansas, and to be able to maintain the kind of approval ratings in this neck of the woods that Kerrey did when he voted against the “Defense of Marriage Act” bill, against the “Welfare Reform Bill” that Clinton signed into law, and against the flag burning amendment is proof that taking a stand on progressive issues in a state like this does not always mean voter backlash if you can communicate with them and make a connection (witness Feingold’s record in the Senate in Wisconsin, a conservative state that elected and re-elected Tommy Thompson twice).
Ben Nelson’s stance against real health care reform or a public option has everything to do with HIM, and his campaign contributors; not against the people of Nebraska, who are far more sophisticated than people think.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1209/How_much_would_the_Medicare_buyin_cost.html?showall#
$600???!!
Can anyone interpret that initial figure about the cost of a Medicare premium buy in. Is that $600 per month? WTF?
December 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The Politico article says the unsubsidized Medicare premium works out to $600/mo. The question is what Medicare population does this refer to? Is that the “true” cost per person of the Medicare coverage offered to those over 65? Or is that what is calculated once the youngsters in the 55+ set are let in? And if so, is the assumption that this is a cross-section of the 55-65 demographic, or just the sick and “uninsurable” [in the Bartelby/Aetna sense: "We'd prefer not to."]?
$600 is more than I’m paying, but not by much. And I’m in an HMO that, unlike Medicare, provides a lot of full coverage (used to be first dollar coverage but Kaiser has gotten with the insurers’ program and is hitting us with lots of $20 per visit/procedure co-pays.) Of course, like most Americans I do not have choice of physicians, though within the area I do have some ability to choose another Kaiser primary care doctor if I don’t like mine.
Biggest problem with Kaiser, imho: it doesn’t cover me under most circumstances out of state! There is very limited emergency coverage. So if you travel much, avoid Kaiser. I suppose we can assume that is one of the benefits of Medicare (or any non-HMO).
As I said above, my new premium is about a 12% increase over 2009.
December 10th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Thanks Michael.
You pay out of pocket $500 ish a month???
Incredible that Americans think this is normal. Why no factual recitation about the cost of insurance the way we do it and the way its done like UK or European countries is just beyond comprehension.
I had deducted from my pay check the equivalent of $160 a month for my NHS contribution in England.
Its all mad. Just mad. As I mentioned above, Michael, it just dawned on me that for less than my NHS contribution we deduct for Medicare and our Soc Sec benefit. Everything goes for when we reach 62-65 then we get great bang for the bucks contributed. Meanwhile up til then you are supporting the insurance industry.
Why not even out the contributions over ones lifetime and just be bloody covered and stop all the nonsense? I mean do the math!
December 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
David – I didn’t know that Kerrey took those particular positions and I commend him for it. I think that in a state like Nebraska it takes a certain level of skill and charisma to be able to compete if you have much in the way of liberal tendencies. Kerrey obviously had that. Nelson is a dull schmuck.
December 10th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
“Nelson is a dull schmuck.”
But more irritatingly, an anti-abortionist neanderthal against ‘real’ health care reform.
David’s politics is more out of place in Nebraska than Nelson’s, regardless of wishful thinking otherwise. Believe me, Nelson would not be taking a stubborn and brave political position against a program his President very much wants, if he didn’t think he was on solid ground with his voters on this issue it in his state.
December 10th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
President gave a knockout speech, from the clips I see on the news, at the Nobel Awards.
Here is my daily piece of advice for you Mr. President. I know you visit here each day just for these. You are too great a speaker and speech writer (I think you write your own) to dilute both with toooo manyyyyy worrrds.
Would President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address be remembered today if it were not so short, sharp, and rememberablet? Would Robert Frost’s poetry be as popular today if it were memorable for its briefness.
Don’t be a Bill. He never learned in eight years, and no one remembers one of his.
December 10th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
“rememberablet?” is “rememberable?”. Yes I know this isn’t a word either Randy, but I want it this way.
“poetry be as popular today if it were memorable for its briefness.” is “…..if it were not memorable for..”
December 10th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Jim,
You might want to read more Richard Lederer and study etymologies. Can’t hurt.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
“David’s politics is more out of place in Nebraska than Nelson’s, regardless of wishful thinking otherwise.”
Have no idea what you mean here…
December 10th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
We often have that problem with Jim.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
For the record, Ben Nelson might not be on “solid ground” with voters in his state if recent polling data in Nebraska gauging voter attitudes toward public option/government-run heath care is any indication. A poll that doesn’t really surprise me, since, unlike Jim the dumbass, I practically live in Nebraska and see Nebraskans each day. Once again, Jim proves that he is full of shit.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Here is the polling
http://www.boldprogressives.org/nelsonpoll
December 11th, 2009 at 6:54 am
“Ben Nelson’s stance against real health care reform or a public option has everything to do with HIM, and his campaign contributors; not against the people of Nebraska, who are far more sophisticated than people think.”
This was the comment I was referring to David. You said Nelson’s against ‘real’ health care reform ‘or’ a public option. Since the only other issue he has with the Senate’s Health Care reform bill is funding of abortion, I assumed you were aware of this and were referring to the abortion issue regarding ‘real’ health care reform. My apologies if you were not.
To my knowledge, the abortion issue is the only one of the two Nelson has threaten to withdraw his support on. This is the issue I said he has solid ground with ‘sophisticated’ Nebraskan voters on.
Cheers.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I wasn’t at all referring to Nelson’
s position on abortion, and I would have thought that was clear. In fact, although it has about gotten me in trouble with other progressives, I am against abortion to the extent that I will never take to the streets and fight for a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy (at the same time, though, I will never take to the streets to fight to criminalize it under the law…the whole issue is moot to me).
And what I meant by “or” is that a public option is not “real” health care reform…the current legislation merits support because although it differs from Republican proposals in minor, cosmetic ways; those small differences can mean the difference in whether thousands or hundreds of thousands of people die, or go bankrupt preventing themselves from dying. Far be it from me to encourage lawmakers to let those people die.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
“Real” health care reform will only happen when the U.S. enacts a single payer health care system that puts insurance companies out of business. THAT is real reform. And it will happen…but not quickly. It will require a lot of chipping away at the structure that exists now.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
And for the record, Nelson is against the bill on multiple grounds that change constantly, in a rather bizaare fashion…not unlike Lieberman.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
In re Anna’s comments 12/10 at 4:01….The system is quite crazy…it is nearly out of control. I gather from prior posts that you exist off this particular grid. That’s good as long as you can pull it off. If, of course, you end up in the hospital for a week or so, you will end up bankrupt like many other Americans.
When people tell the pollsters or interviewers “I’m happy with my health plan…” no one asks if they are happy paying $1,200 per month for family coverage. This is also why the Obama administration was right in attacking the health care monster right off the bat. How can we repair our economic system when such a huge hunk of the GNP (or NNP or NPR or…) goes in the maw of the health care system? This is, in turn, is why I am so adamant that we must not come up empty when we have a chance to take substantial steps toward reforming the health care delivery system.
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