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August 14, 2009: Control issues worry opponents of health insurance reform; opponents have some other ideas:
Listening to broadcasts of town hall meetings held by congressmen and the President and attending one held by Sen. Michael Bennet in Frisco Aug 14, I noticed opponents to health insurance reform had two underlying themes:
1)the issue of who is to control what kind of health care they will get if health care reform is passed 2) can’t we fix our broken system some other way than what the Democrats are proposing
Control is the key issue to those opposed to reform: There is deep seated distrust by many of government controlling what decisions are made. Aside from the wacko and extensively discredited claims that Obama wants to pull the plug on grandma or some death panel will ration care, there is legitimate unease among some that big brother will be dictating what care doctors deliver to patients.
Strange. Many seem to fear government making those decisions much more than they fear what their private insurers are doing to them already. Right now your private insurer tells doctors what kinds of drugs they can prescribe, approve or deny what procedures a doctor can perform, and can drop you from their plan if your illness becomes too expensive for them to cover.
To illustrate their points, some cite horror stories of Canadian waiting lines and
United Kingdomcoverage denials. Since proposals are coming out of Congress are none of those, those stories are irrelevant.
Canadahas one insurance plan: the government’s. That is called a single payer system. It sets rates and compensation.
UKdoes permit some competition of their government plan with private insurers, but most prefer the cheapness of government coverage regardless of complaints.
What Obama proposes is different: a public plan of some sort that is a part of a menu including private plans you can choose from. The public portion is very similar to Medicare and Veterans Administration plans. No one complains that either makes decisions that get between you and your doctor.
What is likely to be proposed by the Senate is a non-profit co-op plan, similar to my credit union or even Mountain Parks Electric, where the users/consumers choose the governance by voting on the directors. Ability to choose between a publicly funded plan and private plans would probably be included in a co-op. This would put the control of what is offered more in the hands of consumers.
What about other solutions? The Republicans have refused to come up with one, though some individual Senators and others have proposed some sketchy ideas with no promises to do anything if the Democrats’ proposals fail. One floating around would be $5 thousand dollar credit or voucher toward a $12 000 policy…an underinsurance policy with a virtual $7000 annual deductable, sending most covered by the plan to the ER for non major medical health care.
Another “sound good” panacea is tort reform. A reason given for the high cost of health care is that too many unnecessary tests are prescribed because doctors are trying to cover their tails in case they are sued. Some wild jury awards cause hefty malpractice insurance bills for hospitals and doctors. No one has defined tort reform. Does it mean banning your ability to sue in case of mal practice? Or would you be prohibited from suing for punitive damages? Obama has made it clear: tort reform will not be included because of its anti-consumer/ patient implications. He also proposes to reduce unnecessary tests by changing compensation based on results in treatment from the current system which pays providers for the number of tests and procedures.
What about allowing us to buy insurance in other states, thus providing competition to drive down premiums. A nice idea, but it ignores reality: nationwide there is already domination by a few insurers whose state affiliates dominate individual states. Proponents of cross state insurance purchase should be careful what they wish for. It would result in a loss of state control of insurance because a state insurance regulator like
Colorado’s could not prosecute a company with headquarters in another state. Any control over unsound financial practices, inability to cover claims, and refusals by private insurers to live up to their contracts with patients would cease to exist.
None of these alternative ideas do much to reduce the cost of health insurance or provide health insurance for those who are currently uninsured. If health insurance reform is defeated, we will continue to pay as much as $1000 extra for our premiums a year to cover the uninsured who seek care in the emergency room. We will continue to pay private insurers at least an extra 13% for their inflated premiums to cover high salaries and commissions, advertising, lobbying, and excessive profits and the costs of our premiums will increase by 70% in the next few years.
Posted in order of date; most recent first. Beginning May 15, 2009, any blog postings regarding the economy, banking and bailouts will be found on the Economy, finance, Ted Muftic's insights page. The rest will be found here. You should also check James Frasche on Afghanistan for background blog postings on Afghanistan.
There were a few policy issues John McCain and Barack Obama agreed upon in the 2008 campaign. One was that the US should stop torture and close Gitmo. McCain's reasoning: he went through torture and if we do it, our enemies will do it to our prisoners. What happened to that argument? McCain is no profile in courage as he failed to follow through with his convictions in the fallout from Obama's decision. We are still waiting to hear what information torture extracted from high value captives. Cheney claims he has the information and one can assume Obama has the same access to that information. I do not understand why this infornation has not been shared with the public or at least with the Senate Intelligence Committee.Some details were included in what was shared with the public already and what was disclosed were not specific enough to be helpful in saving thousands of lives, as Cheney contends. Conclusion: the fruits of interrogation by torture must have been underwhelming or at least not helpful enough to offset the moral and propaganda factors also contributing to Obama's decision. Someday we may have more clarity regarding this, as President Obama commented today. He has not precluded prosecution of those who ordered or wrote the legal memos justifying torture nor has the Senate determined how far they will take their hearings and investigations. Obama has taken prosecution off the table for those who tortured prisoners, but who did it after seeking approval from the higher ups. Cheney could be one of the higher ups. In any case, I do look at Cheney's claims with a sceptical view since he seems to be trying to justify a foreign policy he influenced and that is under intense criticism at this time. What this does show is that the US is lacking in human intel and judgment. It was not the lack of the use of torture that failed us in stopping the 9/11 perps. It was failure to take warnings from our own FBI underlings who spotted the suspicious pilot training going on.This was a inexcuseable: The World Trade Center had already been a target once before and it was well known that Al Qaeda operatives were trying to hijack airplanes in Asia. We virtually had no Arab speakers then in our intelligence services or infiltration of terrorist organizations. Hopefully all of that has changed and the change has accounted for the fact we have not been attacked. To rest the claim that the Bush policies were a success on the fact we used torture ignores many of the other measures the Bush administration took at the same time, and for which they deserve credit. Whether more is to be gained by taking the moral highground or by keeping the dirty secret that we do torture is a false argument. That we did torture and how we do it was no secret at all. Books have been written on it. So who are we kidding. The second part of the issue is forebearing torture in the future. If it proved to be a marginal tool to get information from our enemies, are we loosing that much of an effective tool? There are other psychological techniques one can use in interrogating prisoners that do not fall into the definition of torture and we should use them....the next time we ever happen on a high value member of Al Qaeda. Editor's note: Finally, McCain released a statement coming out against prosecuting anyone in the Bush administration and wanting to move forward looking to the future 4/22/09. I frankly have gone back and forth on the issue several times. I think that those who think water boarding is not torture are wrong. My understanding is that the US has prosecuted those who undertook such torture at Nuremberg and that the US does not observe the Geneva Convention. All of this, including waterboarding, is wrong, wrong, wrong. My initial reaction was to call for a special prosecutor. I have given that a second thought because it sets a dangerous precedent to prosecute someone for wrong doing for what they did in the prior adminstration and that the venom spewed in DC would be harmful for Obama in pursuing his agenda to rescue our economy because of the distraction it would cause. Since Republicans have chosen to stone wall everything Obama has done, it would be no more loss than it has been vote wise...so reaching across the aisle is not a factor either. It would just be loud and distracting from more immediately needed legislation. So far as conducting foreign policy needed to win hearts and minds of the Arab world is concerned, it was sufficiently helpful to disavow torture in the future. However, I am not in favor of letting the decision makers off the hook entirely because sometime in the future in another administration someone will look back and see that there were no repercussions for conducting torture. I think the best way to proceed is a commission with subpoena powers and to give immunity from criminal prosecution to all of the testifiers...with the thought of finding out what needs to be done in the future, including legislation. There should be sworn testimony and no immunity should be given for those testifying in the commission hearings who tell lies or are in contempt. The public exposure should provide enough political embarrassment to deter future perpetrators. The idea is to get the truth and nothing but the turth. I do think immoral is immoral regardless of the fruits of acting immorally and the ends do not justify the means...so that release of the entire documentation, that Cheney asks, is irrelevant. However, for historians, the release might be interesting and that should be part of the commission's work, if only for historical references, and to understand how such decisions were made. The point made above is that there are other ways to extract information during interrogation short of torture that can and should be utilized. Felicia Felicia Posted April 20, 2009.I am listening to the nostalgia of the advocates of the neo con days when Bush II's initial foreign policy approach "to offer a humble foreign policy" was over ruled by his neo con macho bully advisors. Here is where nastiness got us: Venezuela (one of our most important sources of oil) elected...yes, elected...Hugo Chavez...who envisions himself as a Castro successor. Colombia, who used to be our friend, became a close ally of Venezuela. Years of trying to oust Daniel Ortega resulted to his return to power in Nicaragua. Chile has a socialist goverrnment Brazil's president, with tongue in cheek, recently claimed blue eyed blonds of Wall Street were at fault for the world economic crisis. All rose to power on the backs of anti US sentiment of their own people. Like US relations around the world, it is difficult for leaders to stand on a platform of anti Americanism when the American is viewed as a good guy. Obama, once again, by virtue of his persona, is reaching out to the street. In the Chavez handshake, however, Obama did not initiate the contact. Chavez did. however, Chavez must have had a pretty good idea that Obama would be gracious to his advancement. Are we conveying weakness? Good grief. Did we give up any thing of US power, military might, economic give aways with a smile? I have a belief that graciousness and confidence are a sign of power, not a sign of weakness. It is a way of saying you do not scare me. Why empower Ortega, a tin pot dictator of a banana republic, Maybe Obama should have figurtively taken off his shoe and banged it on the table like churlish Soviet leadeas and claim the US never did try to dominate Latin America economically or politically and that lecture them that they should honor human rights as we did in Gtmo and Abu Graib. Only those who are secure can look their opponent in the face and smile. That may be my Southern upbringing talking, where you can smile at someone you do not like, and slip a knife in the back later. A smile, a handshake, grace are viewed as a sign of strength there, not a sign of weakness. How short our memories are: Nixon going to China, meeting with the Soviet and Russian leaders were never viewed as a sign of US weakness by anyone. Come, come.
Obama is closer to the Teddy Roosevelt model of foreign affairs...speak softly,, but carry a big stick. So far, Obama has shown no reluctance to carry a big stick. He is upping our military commitment to Afghanistan, reshaping the military to be able to fight Iraq and Afghanistan types of urban guerilla warfare, increasing the military budget by 4% and shown a willingness to order deadly force as the Somali pirate rescue illustrated. I admit I am conditioned by Balkan history. The old, time honored tradition is once you have an enemy, keep them an enemy for the next 500 years. That got them World War I, a simultaneous civil war during World War II resulting in a Communist government, and the Balkan wars of the 1990's, setting each fracture country left over at least a decade behind in economic development, if not more. Then, following that historic model for how not to conduct foreign affairs, nothing ever happens to change course because each party refuses to budge or try to break the ice. It just isn't macho enough, right? Besides, Obama said he would talk with our enemies. The majority voted for that approach and so it is. Felicia
I admit I am conditioned by Balkan history. The old, time honored tradition is once you have an enemy, keep them an enemy for the next 500 years. That got them World War I, a simultaneous civil war during World War II resulting in a Communist government, and the Balkan wars of the 1990's, setting each fracture country left over at least a decade behind in economic development, if not more. Then, following that historic model for how not to conduct foreign affairs, nothing ever happens to change course because each party refuses to budge or try to break the ice. It just isn't macho enough, right? Besides, Obama said he would talk with our enemies. The majority voted for that approach and so it is. Felicia
I admit I am conditioned by Balkan history. The old, time honored tradition is once you have an enemy, keep them an enemy for the next 500 years. That got them World War I, a simultaneous civil war during World War II resulting in a Communist government, and the Balkan wars of the 1990's, setting each fracture country left over at least a decade behind in economic development, if not more. Then, following that historic model for how not to conduct foreign affairs, nothing ever happens to change course because each party refuses to budge or try to break the ice. It just isn't macho enough, right? Besides, Obama said he would talk with our enemies. The majority voted for that approach and so it is. Felicia
I admit I am conditioned by Balkan history. The old, time honored tradition is once you have an enemy, keep them an enemy for the next 500 years. That got them World War I, a simultaneous civil war during World War II resulting in a Communist government, and the Balkan wars of the 1990's, setting each fracture country left over at least a decade behind in economic development, if not more. Then, following that historic model for how not to conduct foreign affairs, nothing ever happens to change course because each party refuses to budge or try to break the ice. It just isn't macho enough, right? Besides, Obama said he would talk with our enemies. The majority voted for that approach and so it is. Felicia
I admit I am conditioned by Balkan history. The old, time honored tradition is once you have an enemy, keep them an enemy for the next 500 years. That got them World War I, a simultaneous civil war during World War II resulting in a Communist government, and the Balkan wars of the 1990's, setting each fracture country left over at least a decade behind in economic development, if not more. Then, following that historic model for how not to conduct foreign affairs, nothing ever happens to change course because each party refuses to budge or try to break the ice. It just isn't macho enough, right? Besides, Obama said he would talk with our enemies. The majority voted for that approach and so it is. Felicia
Posted by themufticforum at 4/16/2009 6:46 AM MDT on skyhidailynews.com |
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Winter Park, CO 80482
ph: 303 810 0809
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