I swear to god, this ad is running on the MI GOP web site right now. Don't they realize they are a joke? I have to admit one thing, it is funny, although I don't think they intended to make it funny. I was rolling on the floor laughing at the GOP.
In a conversation recently, a person I know responded to the issues in Canada and their Health Care, as "you get what you pay for". While this is a nice phrase that is used over and over again, it's hardly true and second misses the point.
The problem in Canada is not that Health Care sucks, or that the Government helping it's people is this big evil thing, the problem is lack of Doctors, partly because they know they can come to the United States and make more money, and second because NOW EVERYONE HAS EQUAL ACCESS. I would much rather be the issue that there are not enough Doctors to go around, than the issue being that people just can't afford Health Care.
Now back to the statement of "You Get What You Pay For". First I think such a statement about Health Care is crazy and absurd. The quality of care you receive should not be based on how much money you got, to say something like that you are implying that only the rich deserve to be well, and the poor can just die, which well seems to be the Republican plan if you ask me. Second part of the issue with such a statement, is we do not get what we pay for. The reality is Americans dish out so much of their paycheck already for Health Care, that often leaves them wondering what the hell is going on. I'm amused by Health Care ads in which the Health Care companies claims to have the best ratings of all the Health Care Companies, that's like claiming to be the biggest douche among all your douche friends, way to go, but your still a douche!
Health Care should not be based on how much money you got, or how much you are willing to spend, Health Care should be based on one single principal, do we or do we not believe that Health Care is a basic Human Right. When your playing with peoples lives, it's not about how much money you can make, it's about what is right and what is wrong.
My former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers stopped by the offices of the Livingston Press & Argus in Livingston County, Mich. this week to throw some poop on health care reform. Not only did he throw poop, he told several bald-faced lies including this one:
He said a government-appointed panel's conclusion that women need fewer mammograms at certain ages would be incorporated in the bills.
Rogers, himself a cancer survivor, said the government shouldn't dictate who has access to mammograms.
"I said, 'Oh, my gosh. They just sentenced to death 36,000 American women.'"
While Hoekstra runs around trying to profit from the attempted bombing over Detroit and score points with teabagger Republicans, it's important to put this incident into perspective. Via Blue Texan at FDL (see his chart below):
If you count the Ft. Hoot shooting as a terrorist attack, which even the likes of Pantload doesn't, 16 people have died in the United States as a result of terrorism in 2009. The other three deaths include the Little Rock military recruiting office shooting (1), the Holocaust Museum shooting (1), and Dr. George Tiller's assassination (1), the last two coming at the hands of right-wing extremists.
Clearly, lack of health insurance is more of a threat to Americans than a terrorist attack, yet Hoekstra voted NO on health care. He's clearly in no position to be shooting off his mouth and calling on the president to "lead in the fight to keep Americans safe" after that vote.
I am extremely disillusioned with the shape the healthcare bill has taken, but I'm not willing to say it shouldn't pass and/or we should start over. I'll let Kevin Drum speak for me. He makes a compelling argument for seeing this bill through.
With the public option now out of the healthcare bill, is it still worth passing? Regular readers will be unsurprised that I think the answer is pretty firmly yes-and that liberals who now want to pick up their toys and hand reform its sixth defeat in the past century need to wake up and smell the decaf. Politics sucks. It always has. But the bill in front of us-messy, incomplete, and replete with bribes to every interest group imaginable-is still well worth passing.
When big legislative efforts go down in flames, they almost never spring back onto the calendar anytime soon - and that's especially true when big healthcare bills fail. It didn't happen in 1936, it didn't happen in 1949, it didn't happen in 1974, and it didn't happen in 1995. What makes anyone think it will happen in 2010?
Drum also makes the point that if healthcare reform dies this year, it dies for a good long time, and Republicans know it. And even though it's not the bill we wanted, it's a good start. Via Ezra Klein:
"This is a good bill," Sen. Sherrod Brown said on Countdown last night. "Not a great bill, but a good bill." That's about right. But the other piece to remember is that more than it's a good bill, it's a good start. With $900 billion in subsidies already in place, it's easier to add another hundred billion later, if we need it, than it would be to pass $1 trillion in subsidies in 2011. With the exchanges built and private insurers unable to hold down costs, it's easier to argue for adding a strong public option to the market than it was before we'd tried regulation and a new competitive structure. With 95 percent of the country covered, it's easier to go the final 5 percent. And with a health-care reform bill actually passed, it's easier to convince legislators that passing such bills is possible.
Insurers have to take all comers. They can't turn you down for a preexisting condition or cut you off after you get sick.
Community rating. Within a few broad classes, everyone gets charged the same amount for insurance.
Individual mandate. I know a lot of liberals hate this, but how is it different from a tax? And its purpose is sound: it keeps the insurance pool broad and insurance rates down.
A significant expansion of Medicaid.
Subsidies for low and middle income workers that keeps premium costs under 10% of income.
Limits on ER charges to low-income uninsured emergency patients.
Caps on out-of-pocket expenses.
A broad range of cost-containment measures.
A dedicated revenue stream to support all this.
Drum is right. This is still a huge achievement, one that will benefit tens of millions of people in very concrete ways and will do it without expanding our long-term deficit. And he also points out "this is more than Bill Clinton ever did, more than Teddy Kennedy did, more than LBJ did, more than Truman did, and more than FDR did."
Republicans are the biggest bunch of immature, self-serving clowns I've ever laid eyes on. They are so intent on killing health care reform that they've resorted to playing games.
Republicans in the Senate are stymieing debate on the health care reform bill this afternoon by forcing the clerk to read an entire 700-plus-page amendment.
Says McConnell spokeman Don Stewart: "We're doing everything we can to stop this bill."
Is this their idea of democracy? It's bad enough we've had to endure their months of lies, lies which have been pretty damn effective.
There's ample evidence that reform would lower the deficit, but the public has been convinced otherwise. There's ample evidence that reform would make medical more affordable, but the public has been convinced otherwise. There's ample evidence that reform would strengthen Medicare, but the public has been convinced otherwise. There's ample evidence that reform would get spending under control, but the public has been convinced otherwise.
Quite honestly, I'm sick of the way they've turned our government into a tool for their own personal use and ambitions. Every major industrial nation in the world provides affordable health care for their citizens and there's no good reason we shouldn't have it too.
A man in Riverview has an unusual Christmas display on his lawn and the neighbors aren't too happy about it. His signs support national health insurance, but the mom next door is upset because her kids are asking questions. "I just don't think Christmas is the time to make a political statement," she said.
Fox asks what you think. I say that young man probably speaks for millions of people who would love to wake up to health insurance under their tree on December 25th.
Thank you for respecting a woman's right to choose, Congressman Schauer, and for also having the courage to say what many women think - "The government doesn't belong in the room when these very personal, private decisions are being made." And neither does the religious right, Council of Catholic Bishops and Bart Stupak. They certainly don't speak for all people of faith.
UCC Minister and Co-Team Leader for the Cleveland-based Team, the Rev. Loey Powell, reiterated the UCC's 40-year history of support for reproductive health care and said of the amendment, "We join [partner faith] groups in expressing our disappointment that the House bowed to pressure exerted at the last minute from anti-abortion lobbyists ... Once again women's health and well-being have been compromised in the halls of Congress."
The United Methodist Church's official positions on abortion and immigration stand in opposition, however, to restrictions placed in the bill that limit coverage for all of God's children living in the United States. H.R. 3962 excludes immigrants and women whose circumstances indicate need for an abortion. These restrictions even include persons who now have such insurance.
The bill establishes a two-tiered system of health delivery. It essentially penalizes women and immigrants with fewer economic resources.
"This Stupak-Pitts amendment is an egregious assault on the rights of women and an enormous step backward for those who believe in the separation of religion and state. It enshrines one religious view of abortion into law and enlists the federal government to enforce it.
Just when you think you have heard all the Republican lies about health care, they roll out another one to debunk.
The newest lie is that there is a provision in the historic Affordable Health Care for America Act passed earlier this month that - get this - where you will get five years in prison for not buying government approved insurance. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the rightwing echo chamber has picked up on it, and even local blogs like the Republican Michigander are pushing that lie.
They have used the lie of death panels, illegal aliens will be provided free health care at taxpayer's expense or a government official will make medical decisions. Even Mike Rogers is making the false claim and scaring senior citizens who love Medicare by telling them the lie that they will lose Medicare if the bill passes. That contradicts the earlier lie by Michigan Republican Chair Ron Weiser that passage of the bill will cancel all private health insurance and put everyone on Medicare.
Which lie is it? How can Americans be on Medicare if Rogers said we will lose it? But the jail lie is the newest false talking point, but I somehow doubt it will be the last one.
The simple fact is that the penalty under the House health care reform bill for failure to purchase insurance is a tax, not jail time.
Section 501 of the House health care reform bill provides that an individual must be "covered by acceptable coverage at all times." If a person does not have acceptable health care coverage, Section 501 imposes a tax on that person "not to exceed the applicable national average premium."
Now, I understand that the larger the pool the cheaper the cost is, and that people who are not covered costs all of us, but I'm not sure I like the idea of mandating health insurance. It bothers me for auto insurance. This is something that needs to be debated with facts, not lies like jail time for not doing it.
Rightwing bloggers are claiming that the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the bill describes the penalties as follows:
• Section 7203 - misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 - felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.
There is a slight problem with that false claim: there is no Section 7203 or 7201 in the health care bill. It is in the IRS code. Non-profit and nonpartisan Factcheck.org backs that up, and it points out it's the maximum penalty for not paying the tax.
Fact check says, "the majority of delinquent taxes and penalties are collected through the civil process," without resort to criminal penalties. Prison terms are relatively rare. Imprisonment would require the government to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the tax evasion was "willful" and the accused had the ability to pay."
Is there any lie the Republicans will not float to protect the huge profits of the insurance industry and keep more than 50 million of Americans without insurance coverage, millions more undercover and millions more an illness away from bankruptcy?
To rally the troops for this all-important bill that will help turn the country around and help cover the more than 47 million Americans without health care overage, a coalition of activists, organizations, progressive-minded groups and every MoveOn Council from across the state is sponsoring a pro-reform rally from 1-4 p.m. this Sunday on the lawn of the Capitol steps in Lansing called "Michigan Stands For Health Care."
Come out and join dedicated, patriotic Americans to make a stand for real health care reform as Congress is set to vote on major national health care reform,. Send an unmistakable message that Michigan is sick of the status quo of our broken, existing health care delivery system.
Billionaires for Wealthcare - a grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, HMO lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system - will debate members of MoveOn Michigan during. The debate will be moderated by Dr. Mark Guerrieri.
Just seeing Billionaires for Wealthcare is worth the trip, and the weather is expected to be good. So, get there any way you can; trains, planes, automobiles, bus or car pool.
Okay, I can respect that, but isn't health care for the uninsured a moral issue too? And how does Stupak square his concern for fetuses with the lack of respect he shows this group of people?
In his letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Stupak expressed concern over reports that terrorist suspects would have priority over United States citizens waiting for the vaccine.
Apparently "suspected" terrorists are less worthy.
It might only be 229 more vaccines but I would rather see 229 vaccines go to pregnant women of young children to be protected from H1N1 not to a group of people who are beheld as suspected terrorist against our country.
I'm not trying to beat up on Stupak. I think his heart is in the right place, and he votes with Democrats more than 90% of the time, but I'm tired of the way this argument always gets framed. We should respect all life, including the lives of terrorists and the uninsured, not just the lives of fetuses.
The good news is that Stupak does support health care reform and still plans to support it.
If everything I want [is] in the final bill, I like everything in the bill except you have public funding for abortion, and we had a chance to run our amendment and we lost. OK, I voted my conscience, stayed true to my principles, stayed true to the beliefs of this district, could I vote for healthcare? Yes I still could.
I hope the other 39 House Democrats aligned with Stupak vote Yes. Health care for the uninsured deserves their respect and support too.
As Cordelia Lear pointed out yesterday, the opt-out choice that allows states to withdraw from the public option is no panacea. Read what she says about Mike Bishop and Andy Dillon to understand why opt-out is a bad idea, but it's basically because the public option choice will literally be in the hands of lawmakers who don't care about us.
I originally figured I could live with the opt-out plan because it's loosely modeled on Medicaid, "which originally allowed states to "opt-out" of the program and today enjoys the participation of all 50 states." And, as TPM pointed out, there was good reason to believe that the public option would have been a lot scarier as a GOP straw man than it would as a real world option for people who can't get private coverage.
And if the public option is available in North Carolina, just to pick a hypothetical, and not South Carolina, after a while, people in the South Carolina might start to wonder what the logic was of denying them a lower cost health insurance option. And if that's true, presumably, pressure will build in the opt-out states to opt-in. So even if a substantial number of people aren't covered at the start, there's good reason to believe that will change over time.
There's just one tiny problem with the "presumably, pressure will build to opt-in" scenario. We're dealing with politicians who often put party ideology ahead of people. If pressuring our leaders worked, we would have had health care a long time ago.
And, as Cordelia mentioned, it's not exactly clear who gets to do the opting-out. Will governors be able to unilaterally make that decision or will it take action by both houses of the state legislature? As Jon Walker at FDL pointed out, depending on how the opt-out is written, millions of people in states controlled by Republicans could find themselves disenfranchised.
If a Republican becomes Michigan's next governor, or they manage to pick up any seats, we can kiss opting-in goodbye. Seriously. That makes the next election extremely important because there's just one thing standing between national health care and the 1.13 million uninsured adults in our state - Republicans (and DINO's like Dillon).
Over an eight-year period - from 2000 to 2008 - children under the age of 18 lost employer-sponsored health insurance at a faster rate than adults, that's according to the EPI, which also points out the silver lining in this dismal news.
...the share of children with public coverage grew 8.8 percentage points, as compared to only a 3.5 percentage point increase for the adult population under 65. Public insurance in the form of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) provided a safety net source of insurance coverage for 23 million children in 2008.
That's a comforting thought. In the midst of the Great Recession, our children had health care because of programs like Medicaid and SCHIP, programs that Republicans have repeatedly tried to kill with their NO votes or by cuts in funding. And as successful as these programs have been, they still don't do enough.
While Medicaid provides coverage primarily to poor children and adults, SCHIP was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. That said, there were still 7.3 million uninsured children and 38.3 million uninsured adults under age 65 in 2008.
We obviously can't trust Republicans with our children, or our own health care for that matter.
Rep. Mike Rogers receives a lot of money from the pharmaceutical, health and insurance industries, which probably explains why he's pushing false information about health care reform. While speaking at the Michigan Business and Legislative Forum last week, where he repeatedly bragged that he had read all 1000+ pages of the House health care bill, he argued that the House reform legislation would allow the federal government to use the results of comparative effectiveness research to ration costly treatments.
Rogers is wrong (he would have known that if he had read page 524 of the legislation). Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact.com says this claim is false:
But in this case, there actually are provisions in the bill about comparative research to make sure it is not used for rationing. Language in the House version of the health bill specifically states: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the Commission or the Center to mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies for any public or private payer."
And let's be clear, comparative effectiveness research has been done by the government for years and years. The Obama administration wants to greatly expand the amount of research. The economic stimulus package also included more funding for comparative effectiveness research. And the bill included a similar disclaimer that it would not mandate insurers to cover or reimburse one treatment or medication over another.
FactCheck.org also says this claim is false, and so does the AARP:
"It boggles the mind" said AARP spokesman Jim Dau, how comparative effectiveness research has been portrayed by opponents of the health care plan as government rationing of care.
"It's just good common sense," Dau said of the research. "It's giving individuals and doctors better evidence-based research so that they can make better decisions."
What exactly is comparative effectiveness research? The Center for American Progress explains that "it evaluates different drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures for the same illness against each other. In contrast, the bulk of research done today examines whether a specific treatment works compared to doing nothing, but comparative effectiveness research evaluates which therapy works best among a range of possibilities for the same illness or condition." This research is important because it can save money.
It's estimated that one-third of procedures and treatments administered in the United States have no proven benefit and account for up to $700 billion annually in current spending. Moreover, some of these treatments can have harmful side effects, produce worse health outcomes, and then, as a result, add to the soaring costs of medical care.
I don't know about Mike Rogers, but I don't like paying $50 dollars for a pill that's not anymore effective than one costing a buck, and the media is full of articles questioning whether cholesterol drugs do any good or if angioplasty is advisable in all patients. My favorite story is from last fall when the NY Times published an article about one of the biggest medical trials ever organized by the federal government. It showed that generic diuretics (water pills) costing only pennies a day, and in use for high blood pressure since the 1950s, worked better than newer drugs that were 20 times as expensive. Not only that, the research revealed that the pricier drugs increased the risk of heart failure and stroke.
As CAP points out, "There is no incentive for the companies to fund research that compares their treatment to another since it is not in their best interest to determine if another treatment works as well or better than theirs. Because of this the federal government must invest in this research."
It just doesn't make sense for Rogers to criticize comparative effectiveness research unless he's hoping to protect his big donor's profits. Republicans want us to take charge of our health and spending on health care dollars, yet they seek to limit information about over-priced or hazardous medications or treatments. Not only can that be harmful to our health or downright deadly, it's a waste of money - as much as $700 billion annually.
There is no alternative to the public health insurance option, the only alternative is the status quo. - Sen. John Rockefeller
As Robert Reich reminds us, today is a critical day in the saga of the public option. Democrats Charles Schumer and Jay Rockefeller are introducing amendments to include the public option in the bill to be reported out by the Senate Finance Committee. (This is the Max Baucus committee that the White House favors as its vehicle for getting health care reform done, and Debbie Stabenow is also on this committee.)
TPM points out that the two proposals are very different, and neither is expected to pass, but for the first time it will force a number of key senators to go on the record. Therefore, it's important that you call Senators Stabenow and Levin today and tell them to vote in favor of the amendment. They're both on record as supporting health care reform with a public option, but now it's time for them to back that support up with their votes.
There is no alternative to the public health insurance option, the only alternative is the status quo. - Sen. John Rockefeller
As Robert Reich reminds us, today is a critical day in the saga of the public option. Democrats Charles Schumer and Jay Rockefeller are introducing amendments to include the public option in the bill to be reported out by the Senate Finance Committee. (This is the Max Baucus committee that the White House favors as its vehicle for getting health care reform done, and Debbie Stabenow is also on this committee.)
TPM points out that the two proposals are very different, and neither is expected to pass, but for the first time it will force a number of key senators to go on the record. Therefore, it's important that you call Senators Stabenow and Levin today and tell them to vote in favor of the amendment. They're both on record as supporting health care reform with a public option, but now it's time for them to back that support up with their votes.
After all, Michigan Rep. Dave Camp is standing up for insurance companies and, along with fellow Republicans, has "mounted a ferocious defense of the market's right to continue burning through taxpayer dollars."
Camp is also standing up for the pharmaceutical/health products/health professionals industries that donated money to his campaign committee for 2009-2010 and 2007-2008.
If Camp is standing up for insurance companies, we should too. As this PSA relates, insurance company CEOs have the right to their American dream just like the rest of us. They've looked out for our best interests for so long and now we should look out for theirs.
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus finally released his health care plan after months of haggling. I'm not too impressed, especially on the matter of affordability.
It would extend benefits to millions of people who are uninsured by broadly expanding Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and by offering subsidies to individuals and families with modest incomes to help them buy insurance.
The proposal would also set limits on out-of-pocket health care expenses. It would cap at 13 percent of household income - not including cost-sharing such as co-payments and deductibles - the cost of insurance premiums for middle-class Americans who just miss qualifying for the new government subsidies.
Starting in 2013, it would require nearly all Americans to obtain coverage or face a penalty of up to $3,800 a year for families.
Did the committee see this item in yesterday's USA Today?
An average family health insurance policy now costs more than some compact cars, and four in 10 companies will likely pass more of that expense on to workers, according to a closely watched survey of businesses released Tuesday.
The average cost of a family policy offered by employers was $13,375 this year, up 5% from 2008, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust survey found. By comparison, wages rose 3% over that period, the study said.
Let's do some very simple arithmetic. Start with a fairly conservative assumption: If we assume that premium increases over the next ten years will average what they did over the last five (about 6.1% per year), the average premium for a family policy in 2019 will be $24,180. That's a big number. On the other hand, if we assume increases revert to the average of the last ten years-an average annual increase of about 8.7% and a very plausible scenario-premiums in 2019 will average a whopping $30,803, a very scary number.
Third only to the industrial military complex, and the NRA there is not a better funded special interest goup than the doctors, medical insurance carriers and the hospitals. All three contain the same core constituency with a frosting of a paridigm but no real cake.Loud proud and dead wrong with emotional but not well thought out positions this cabal has turned America against its core values. To them torture is okay and the poor remnants of Americas middle class can go without health care. They berate Obamas Health care plan. All Obama is saying is that we need change. This cabal essantial argues no change. No change will cause us to stand by why the uninsured die,business continue to fold and move off shore because of our health care costs. Our health care system is broke and needs fixing. This loud and proud cabal now stands in the way of change just because they can. What is needed is an active debate on the cost benefit analyis of units of change. What we hear instead is the pure ignorance of the single issue vestages of the rightwing. There is no reason in the United states of America any citizen does not have access to health care!
Terry Bankert
My former 
