Daily Health Care News - 11/25/09
Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in News Clips
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NEWS
From the Hospital to Bankruptcy Court - New York Times
Some of the debtors sitting forlornly in this city’s old stone bankruptcy court have lost a job or gotten divorced. Others have been summoned to face their creditors because they spent mindlessly beyond their means. But all too often these days, they are there merely because they, or their children, got sick.
NC Health Insurer Being Probed For Campaign Against Public Option - TPM
BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina is being investigated by the state's attorney general for a recent mailer and spate of robo-calls in opposition to the public option, according to a company spokesman.
Insurance Industry Antitrust Fight Headed To Conference Committee - Huffington Post
The insurance industry successfully fought off a Senate threat to revoke its antitrust exemption as part of health care reform, but the issue lives to fight one more battle in the conference committee negotiations that will take place between the two chambers.
Mark Halperin's Mary Landrieu Photoshop: Pure Class - Huffington Post
As many of you know, Mark Halperin is this babbling idiot whom Time magazine hired to cobble together this insipid web product called "The Page," which is designed to scam people looking for trenchant, up-to-the-minute political news into giving Time many, many unnecessary ad impressions as you follow Halperin's teasing links to his content. That content tends to be a really dumb listicle, or a one sentence piece of pure and unadulterated banality, or, if you are really lucky, a paragraph or two of analysis that's either so conventional as to appear slam-dunk, or so witless that it's completely laughable and wrong.
OPINION
The Filibuster is Bad - Matt Yglesias
Every couple of weeks some right-winger or other says to me something like “you sure were singing a different tune on the filibuster back when Democrats were in the minority!” I appreciate that it’s usually a safe bet to accuse people of being hypocritical on issues of congressional procedure, but I’ve really been exceedingly consistent on this point. Back during the 2005 “nuclear option” fight over filibustering circuit court nominees I urged Democrats to try to strike a bargain that would have ending all filibusters as its goal. Similarly, today when some people make the case that “you liberals may hate the filibuster now, but you’ll be glad it’s there next time the Republicans get in” I have to tell them that, no, I won’t.
Will Health Reform Opponents Face The Facts? - Larry McNeely
Over the weekend, the Senate commenced its historic debate on health reform legislation. So what are they talking about in what many call the world's greatest deliberative body?
Is there a difference between voting no and voting to filibuster? - Ezra Klein
It's common these days to hear conservative Democrats say that they view procedural votes as indistinguishable from actual votes. Voting against a bill, and voting against allowing a vote on the bill, are exactly the same, they say. Bruce Bartlett e-mails to say that that wasn't always true, at least not when Republicans were in charge.
Prevention is Not Only Good Health Policy, It's Good Economic Policy - The Health Care Blog
The current debate around how to best control burgeoning health costs, has pushed the issue of prevention to the forefront. That's right where it should be. By shifting our health care to be more pro-active and prevention-oriented, we can make a major impact on common and costly chronic diseases such as diabetes. In turn, this will help to secure the financial stability of our health care system and continued economic growth and prosperity.
Health Care Reform Goes Home for the Holiday - AFL-CIO
Senators are heading home for Thanksgiving this week, but when they return, they’ll begin debate on one of the most important priorities of our lifetime: health care reform.
Reform or not, health care cost is going up. Going up because 1 - insurance is in business to make money, 2 - country is getting older (baby boomers) going to cost everyone more to help pay for the baby boomers insurance, 3 - more and more people dont have insurance so when they go to emergency room I will have to help pay for that. 4 - Less and less people are buying insurance so insurance company's want to make their profit so they will raise prices to keep their profit margin.
Rather you like it or not, health reform has to happen. Insurance company's should not be able to deny people coverage who have paid for it. What a sham. Prices are going to keep going up. More it goes up the less money people will have to spend. If business want us to buy their stuff , they would want us to have more money to spend, not less. If people cant spend money on new toys and food then more and more people will keep getting laid off so business can make profits.
Is this a bad bill yes. Should it pass - no.
I believe a better bill would be to make a public option. Rather than subsidizeit so that people who dont make alot can afford, just take 20 percent off the top and set a standard price for health insurance. Example - take what ever prices health insurance company's offer the government and reduce it by 20 percent. This will do several things.
1. put more money into the pockets of business owners who offer health insurance by 20 percent. Business will have more money to invest and to hire.
2. put more money into people's pocket by 20 percent who pay for insurance themselves. People will have more money to spend on toys, eating, out, vacation, etc.
3. Health insurance will still be able to make a profit. they are making a profit off what they offer the government or they wouldnt offer that price to them.
4. make competition with the health insurance company's
5. rationing wouldnt happen because everyone wouldnt be able to afford it.
6. Should be close to being profitable so there wouldnt have to be taxes raised. Also wont have to pay a CEO's millions of dollars
7. if they make profit - write it into law that the profit has to go down to paying off national debt.
8. If you want the economy to turn around. A start could be to to put more money into people's and buisness pocket. Ex. - my company and I pay about 10,000 dollars for me to have insurance. Cut cost by 20 percent. That is 2000 dollars more that my company has to spend on other things. Times that by 100 employees equals 200,000 more dollars my company would have to spend of investment and jobs.
If the government make a public option - it spells disaster if they subsidize it and raise people taxes.
At least under the House bill, 99% of people in this country won't see their taxes raised to pay for health care.