[kenberg]

I decided to conduct an experiment. I sent the url (see below) for the Post article that I mentioned to flag. I mentioned that I thought it was ok but that I had been assured that it actually was written by a neo con nut job. If you don't hear from me in the next few days, forward my mail to Gitmo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9080703043.html

[luke warm]

Quote

On the subject of disinformation:  Linda Douglas (the spokeswoman for said program) has been very adamant that they are not tracking the names of individuals who are posting information.  Then again, its not like we actually expect you to fact check any to the crap you parrot...

you call a statement from the spokesperson in charge of this to be 'fact checking'? okay

Quote

This isn't something I agree with.  I think that these names should be tracked (I believe that the source of information has a major impact on its credibility)

i think everyone who reads the wc knows you'd go ballistic if a conservative (more or less) administration did anything similar

Quote

As for the following:

Quote

i'd still like to see a big grassroots push demanding that fed gov't employees, including the congress and administration, have whatever health care they presently have substituted for the final version congress passes... wanna bet you never see that? why not, do you think?

I agree. We'd never see anything like this. The main reason is that the health care reform acts that are currently being pushed doesn't specific a single type of health care.

What type of health care are you going to require that the congress critters take?

A health care co-operative?
Private plans (Still allowed)
The "public option"? Who knows if this will even make it into the plan?

Moreover, given the amount of money most members of congress make, I don't think any of them have to worry about health care, regardless of what silly little perqs they might get

"silly little perqs"... i suggest that the final version they pass be the exact same plan they have... who would object to that? (the hint would be they'd not pass one if it had to be the same one they have)

winston said:

It appears to me this attempt at comparison between Obama and Bush with its either/or overtones is somewhat like a variation on false dilemma.

you'd be wrong

Quote

It seems your argument is that Richard and I do not object to the current situation simply because it is Obama and not Bush, which if not false dilemma is surely close to creating a straw man argument.

explain how... this should be interesting

al said:

Turns out the "new" sheriff in town is just the same boss, different lackey. A nice, polished, intelligent lackey, but lackey nontheless.

Homeland security.....from who and what exactly?

exactly right

[Winstonm]

Quote

if the actual quote from an administration official doesn't bother you, so be it... disinformation and untruths abound on all sides, but asking for names (by the gov't, no less) is at least a little bit scary...

You are making an unproven assertion (disinformation and untruths abound on all sides) and then drawing from that unproven proposition a false conclusion that one lying side deciding to clamp down on untruths of the other lying side should be considered scary.

For a guy with an excellent knowledge of logic I would expect more - your arguments in this case seem to me at best weak and at worst totally invalid.

I'm really unconcerned about these efforts. The aspects of the Obama administration that are truly scary are the efforts to continue the Military Commissions, Clinton as Secretary of State, and Gates as Secretary of Defense.

[hrothgar]

[QUOTE][quote name='luke warm' date='Aug 10 2009, 01:15 AM'] [QUOTE]i'd still like to see a big grassroots push demanding that fed gov't employees, including the congress and administration, have whatever health care they presently have substituted for the final version congress passes... wanna bet you never see that? why not, do you think?[/QUOTE]

I agree. We'd never see anything like this. The main reason is that the health care reform acts that are currently being pushed doesn't specific a single type of health care.

What type of health care are you going to require that the congress critters take?

A health care co-operative?
Private plans (Still allowed)
The "public option"? Who knows if this will even make it into the plan?

Moreover, given the amount of money most members of congress make, I don't think any of them have to worry about health care, regardless of what silly little perqs they might get[/QUOTE]
"silly little perqs"... i suggest that the final version they pass be the exact same plan they have... who would object to that? (the hint would be they'd not pass one if it had to be the same one they have) [/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
When I originally parsed what you had written, I assumed that you were suggesting that the congresses existing health plan would be replaced with whatever gets passed in the Health Care reform bill.

From the sounds of things, you're actually suggesting the private citizens have the option of subscribing to the congressional health care plan.

What you are, in fact, describing is the so-called "public option". You are tying this to a very particular Health Care plan, however, a govern sponsored plan is the essence of the public option. I will note that most progressives are very much in favor of the public option. (The ones who aren't prefer much more radical options like single payer). I would have no objection to a requirement that congressional employees use one of the plans included in the public option. However, as I noted earlier, I consider this largely symbolic.

If "public option" fails, it simply reflects the fact that the progressives didn't have the political clout to achieve their goals.

[Winstonm]

Quote

It seems your argument is that Richard and I do not object to the current situation simply because it is Obama and not Bush, which if not false dilemma is surely close to creating a straw man argument.

explain how... this should be interesting

I say I am unconcerned about this flag website to track disinformation. You create a hypothetical comparison (the straw man) and then use that hypothetical as evidence to argue that my disagreement is based solely on bias.

You are much more expert on logic arguments. Perhaps straw man is not the correct term. But your argument is not a good one, regardless.

Quote

you'd be wrong

If this is the appeal to authority you got me - again, I agree that you are the expert and I am the novice in these matters about logic.

[PassedOut]

The propaganda campaign against health care reform has been in full swing, as in this piece from Investor's Business Daily: How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

Quote

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

I found this quote after reading Paul Krugman's short article in the NY Times (Broken tubes) that pointed out how crazy Obama's health care opponents are.

Seems to me that, in this case anyway, the writer must have been joking around, expecting an editor (or proofreader or publisher) to catch and correct the Hawking stupidity. And it's quite amazing that no one did!

I do think it's right for the white house to fight the nonsense, as it has started doing here: Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

[hrothgar]

PassedOut, on Aug 11 2009, 04:17 PM, said:

The propaganda campaign against health care reform has been in full swing, as in this piece from Investor's Business Daily: How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

Quote

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

I found this quote after reading Paul Krugman's short article in the NY Times (Broken tubes) that pointed out how crazy Obama's health care opponents are.

Seems to me that, in this case anyway, the writer must have been joking around, expecting an editor (or proofreader or publisher) to catch and correct the Hawking stupidity. And it's quite amazing that no one did!

I do think it's right for the white house to fight the nonsense, as it has started doing here: Health Insurance Reform Reality Check

Just to be clear:

What makes this particularly ludicrous is that Stephen Hawking is British.
He was born in the UK and used said health services since his birth.

[se12sam]

PassedOut, on Aug 11 2009, 02:17 PM, said:

The propaganda campaign against health care reform has been in full swing, as in this piece from Investor's Business Daily: How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

Quote

The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."

One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.

The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

I read the linked article (Investor's Business daily). This is a poor editorial because it appears the writer has no clue on what NICE is and/or NICE does.

It is true that one of the roles of NICE is to determine permissible drugs etc by considering "cost vs. benefit" analysis. It is much more subjective and qualitative than the phrase sounds.

And in any case, I wonder how many treatments for serious illnesses in the USA are turned down by the Insurance Cos --- with stated reasons like "experimental", "pre-existing condition", "not covered by insurance", "not valid treatment" etc. If this is a common enough occurrence in the US, then the so-called problem with NICE should be the least of the concerns for an average American.

[awm]

It does seem like the pro-health-reform folks might benefit from demonizing the insurance companies a bit more.

The health-care opponents keep bringing up things like rationing, government deciding which treatments are allowed, government deciding who is worth saving, and so forth. All of these things sound awful, but the status quo in the US is that big health insurance companies routinely make these same sorts of decisions for their customers.

Most Americans don't have a whole lot of choice about their health care now. Insurance companies are often a regional monopoly, and even if not our employers typically choose which insurer to contract with, and attempting to sign up for an alternative private plan when the employer offers something else is incredibly expensive (lose the tax benefits of employer-provided plan, and the employer typically won't raise the salary to compensate for declining employer-provided plan, so basically you pay out of pocket and get taxed for it).

So we already have a system where there is rationing, where some bureaucrat decides which treatments are allowed, and so forth. Essentially all the bad things the right wing is charging government with wanting to do are already done in this country by private industry.

Obviously no one wants some bureaucrat getting between them and their doctor. But that's not the choice. The choice is between a corporate bureaucrat whose goal is to maximize profits at the insurance company and who is likely given substantial financial incentives to "save money" by kicking expensive people off the insurance or declining expensive treatments... versus a government bureaucrat who really has no financial interest one way or the other and whose incentives are probably to "minimize complaints" (and thus lost votes for the government) by making sure everyone is reasonably well taken care of.

[Lobowolf]

awm, on Aug 11 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

versus a government bureaucrat who really has no financial interest one way or the other and whose incentives are probably to "minimize complaints" (and thus lost votes for the government) by making sure everyone is reasonably well taken care of.

Quote

It does seem like the pro-health-reform folks might benefit from demonizing the insurance companies a bit more.

I'm not sure it's possible, but if it is, I agree that it would help.

Quote

The health-care opponents keep bringing up things like rationing, government deciding which treatments are allowed, government deciding who is worth saving, and so forth. All of these things sound awful, but the status quo in the US is that big health insurance companies routinely make these same sorts of decisions for their customers.

Agree entirely.

Quote

versus a government bureaucrat who really has no financial interest one way or the other and whose incentives are probably to "minimize complaints" (and thus lost votes for the government) by making sure everyone is reasonably well taken care of.

Disagree entirely. My experience (and I do have a fair amount of it) is that those government bureaucrats, even those in publice service departments, are every bit as bottom-line conscious as anyone in the private sector. For the most part, they don't have the option of creatively raising revenue, so they watch what gets spent. They'll spend everything you give 'em (You don't get rewarded for coming in under budget; if you didn't spend it, you must not have needed it, so next year's budget will probably be smaller), but if they go too far over, it's reduced services for others, cost-cutting layoffs, etc. There's always a department head who most assuredly DOES have a financial interest, and whose incentive it to not lose his job because he came in way over budget, and he's surrounded by policy wonks who are all on the same page.

As you point out, in this respect, that doesn't make them any worse than the private sector folks doing the same thing, but it doesn't make 'em better, either. Private security corporations have budget projections, contigency plans for bad budget years, cost-cutting measures, a heirarchy of if-needed layoffs, etc. So does every police chief this side of Mayberry. Ditto any other department head that provides goods and services that are available in both the public and private sectors.

[PassedOut]

Lobowolf, on Aug 11 2009, 05:16 PM, said:

Disagree entirely. My experience (and I do have a fair amount of it) is that those government bureaucrats, even those in publice service departments, are every bit as bottom-line conscious as anyone in the private sector. For the most part, they don't have the option of creatively raising revenue, so they watch what gets spent. They'll spend everything you give 'em (You don't get rewarded for coming in under budget; if you didn't spend it, you must not have needed it, so next year's budget will probably be smaller), but if they go too far over, it's reduced services for others, cost-cutting layoffs, etc. There's always a department head who most assuredly DOES have a financial interest, and whose incentive it to not lose his job because he came in way over budget, and he's surrounded by policy wonks who are all on the same page.

What you say here is true, but making sure that one comes in exactly on budget is different from making that sure one maximizes profits and bonuses by denying care to as many sick people as possible.

Reforming health care won't make all the tough decisions easier, but they will move them away from people with a strong profit incentive to deny care.

I'm happy to see that the proposed plan pays doctors to give, when asked, some counseling regarding end-of-life decisions. Much of the money wasted on health care today occurs during the last two months of a person's life - much of it unwanted and unnecessary.

Folks do need to know how to stop those indignities legally. For me, it's comforting to know that Constance and I have the necessary documents ready in our safe deposit box.

[mike777]

Been reading media reports of European countries where the per patient cost is roughly around 3500$ compared to around 7500$ in the USA. The outcomes and quality of care seems to be just as good though I suppose there is room for discussion on that point.

What I have not seen is a breakdown of why the USA seems to cost so much more. For instance do we basically pay double the price for everything when it comes to medical care? Do we have twice the quantity medical care as everyone else? Examples would be twice the hospital stays, twice the medicine, twice the tests, etc?

Side note I do condemn the behavior inside some of these townhalls, lets try and act more civil inside the halls and leave the signs, yelling, and antics for outside.

[mike777]

"Folks do need to know how to stop those indignities legally. For me, it's comforting to know that Constance and I have the necessary documents ready in our safe deposit box."


Sidenote, in my discussions with doctors I am told these documents carry very little weight in these end of life talks. In many cases these were drawn up ten or twenty or more years ago. The family's wishes carry alot more weight in practice.

[awm]

My impression is that the biggest factors in the higher cost of US health care are:

(1) Generally poor health. In particular, a much higher percentage of Americans are overweight than Europeans. This causes a number of expensive (but usually treatable) health issues.

(2) Higher prices for prescription drugs. This is caused by a combination of very long-term patent laws (allowing the company that develops a new drug to have a virtual monopoly in the US for a long time), very strict FDA standards (making it hard for new, cheaper drugs to be approved quickly), and the lack of a single large organization which can negotiate bulk discounts on drugs (the US government has basically caved to the drug lobby and promised not to do this).

(3) Profit margins and high administrative costs for private insurance companies.

(4) Extremely high cost of malpractice insurance due to frequent lawsuits against doctors and hospitals.

(5) Inefficiency of hospitals offering emergency room treatment at their own expense to seriously ill uninsured individuals. If these folks were insured (even at public expense), then they could be treated much more cheaply most of the time (for example at local clinics).

Determining exactly how much each of these costs can be difficult; I have seen a number of different figures but they are usually "spun" by one side or another. Republicans seem to like to blame litigation (item 4) and illegal immigrants (part of 5) for most of the problems whereas Democrats usually like to blame the lack of a single payer (3 and part of 2).

[helene_t]

Adam's account sounds plausible. Maybe another two (possible minor) issues can be added:

- US patients are more likely to go doctor-shopping and ask for 2nd opinion. In most European countries, patients have a decade-long relation to their doctors so they don't have to tell the same story twice, or have the same test made twice.
- US doctors earn more than their European colleagues (OK, part of this is because of the costs of lawsuit insurances which they have to pay themselves afaihu)

[se12sam]

Did you folks watch The Daily Show segment of August 10th, featuring Samantha Bee, John Oliver and Aasif Mandvi?

I have to admit I thought it was a scathing criticism of the US Insurance Sector. And it was hillarious --- as always with these segments, these other presenters completely overshadow Jon Stewart.

[ArtK78]

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Henry Louis Mencken.

I read this thread with some intererst. Most of the time the only exposure that I have to Fox News and the various commentators on the Fox News Network are the brief snippets I see on The Daily Show. However, the health care debate and the disgusting orchestrated behavior of the protestors at the town hall hearings prompted me to view some of the ongoing "discussion" of the issues on Fox News.

I could only watch about 10 minutes at a time before I became violently ill.

Sarah Palin and her admirerers appear to be playing to the absolute dark side of the American public, with a good deal of success. While I certainly hope for a rational and enlightened discussion of the issues will result in the creation of a national health care system which will be the envy of the rest of the world, I have been disappointed many times before.

I am old enough to remember 1968, when the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon for President. I thought it was a sick joke at the time, but it turned out that the joke was on all of us.

We survived Nixon (barely), Reagan and Bush Sr, and Bush/Cheney/Rove (barely). We finally have a President and an administration which is marked by intelligence and rationality. Hopefully they will be able to get past the politics of fear and hate and accomplish something desireable.

[Al_U_Card]

The economy (and individual rights and welfare) do better under Dems because they are reining in the rapacious, conservative and moneyed elements of society. The Republicans let loose the hounds of war and their profiteers giving them carte blanche to pillage the public coffers with the expected results. (Trickle down illusions and gush-up prosperity).

Obama is so far on the side of the bankers and financial community that I pause at endorsing his actions whole-heartedly. Goldman-Sachs etc. were too big to fail? They were not too big to run it up before the fall. Had the government decided another route to take, then maybe chaos would have ensued.....3rd term for W under the Patriot Act.

[vuroth]

Winstonm, on Aug 8 2009, 09:13 AM, said:

56,899,510 Americans voted to put this lady one heartbeat away from the presidency.

How many voted to put someone with less executive experience than her into an actual position of power?

You guys seriously need more choices.

[kenberg]

ArtK, I am getting ill over the way this debate is going and I haven't even tried watching Fox News. As I get it, there are now two competing views (if "views" is a word that can be used here.
View 1. Obama plans to kill your grandmother.
View 2. All concern of any sort over Obama's plan are caused by Sarah Palin being so evil.

I most heartily recommend that Sarah Palin be given the obscurity she deserves. It is not possible to keep some people from listening to her but if it wasn't her it wouold be someone else.