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| Posted: 24 Nov 2009 15:45 |
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Tennessee's Sen. Bob Corker says health plan uses 'trickery'
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Democratic-led efforts to reform the nation's health-care system depend on budgeting "trickery," Sen. Bob Corker said on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after an event at Belmont University to promote efforts by the school, Music Row groups and the U.S. Congress to fund clean water projects in Africa, Corker said the health-care measure put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would shift costs to the states, raid existing programs and rely on gimmicks.
He said the Senate should shift its focus to ideas that are less costly and rely more on private insurers.
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In a speech from the Senate floor on Saturday, Alexander described the plan developed by Reid and as "arrogant in its dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to be a part of for our health care."
On Monday, Corker also criticized the plan to expand Medicaid eligibility, repeating an estimate by Gov. Phil Bredesen that the expansion would cost the state of Tennessee $740 million over the reform plan's first five years.
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Corker also said the legislation uses a budgeting trick of balancing the books by allocating a decade's worth of revenue to programs that will not start up for another four years, and shortchanges Medicare by rededicating some of its funds to health-care reform.
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"If Lamar Alexander and I proposed this bill, word for word ... there's not a person on the other side of the aisle that would vote for this bill,"
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=105820&provider=rss
__________________Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
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| Posted: 24 Nov 2009 17:50 |
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The problem with the healthcare debate is no one wants to be honest about the problem.
I'll go along with it, you need trickery to sell healthcare reform, but that's becaue most people are just too damn childish to accept that you can't have free unlimited healthcare.
You want healthcare costs to come down you need to regulate the system. Either through HMO's in the private sector, or through public sector intervention. Either effort can work, but people don't want to make the sacrafice that it would take.
And as a result our nation is at a major competative disadvantage, and losing ground every day. Wages have been stagnant not because of greedy corporate tycoons, but because of the inflationary cost of healthcare.
So yeah, they have to use trickery, and your right the public option is a back door to single payer. But if you can find another way to fix our dying healthcare system, I'd like to hear it?
I work in HR, I handle benefits, and most folks have no idea how much costs increase year to year. And if you want to fix it, you need to have a large entity that can negotiate the best rates, and make rules about the distribution of services.
That's set prices and ration care. You can have BCBS do it or you can have the state do it. Now personally I wouldn't mind letting BCBS do it, but I know (as happened in the 80's) that letting them do it will result in the state coming in at the behest of their constituants afraid of HMO's to stop them. So you are left with the state being the start and end of the system.
There just isn't a practical way to make health care afordable, even for the few otherwise.
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| Posted: 24 Nov 2009 22:10 |
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@Matches. Let's say there's a magic spell set off where people could be counted on to pay the bills they owe, just for ha-ha's. What if individuals no longer 'needed' health insurance?
__________________But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 04:20 |
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@Pakratmak...that statement is so idiotic I am unsure how to answer it?
The issue isn't desire to pay, it's sort of the inability to pay since you know, Chemotherapy can really make it hard to finish your shift down at the Arby's.
Now yeah, you can let them all die in the street, that's fine till you're the one with pancreatic cancer, then I don't care how you've scripted and saved if you weren't born rich, you are going to die poor, and likely your spouse and children will wind up poor as well having to make good on your debts and all.
So, the issue is, do we just get rid of modern medicine and we all take our chances, or do we try to work out a system where we can acheive a workable medical system. The only way to make a workable system is set prices and ration care. Nothing else works, economics won't let it.
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 10:58 |
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No need to be rude, it was merely a hypothetical and I never said any people should be denied anything or advocated killing anyone or letting people die because they're poor and the not paying part was not based on desire. I merely asked about the need for the insurance itself. Is it that the possibility escapes you or your income relies too heavily on it to even think of it not being there?
__________________But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 16:36 |
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I didn't call you idiotic, just your statement.
I do appologize, however as I was quite exhausted when I wrote it, and I likely would have used differnt languange had I written it at this time.
Look, the issue with insurance is that for the most part, modern effective medicine cost a great deal of money. Not your regular visit to the doctors for the sniffles, but your actual "let's not die of cancer" costs are astronomical.
The way insurance works is that the vast majority of people don't get cancer, but it is a relativly equal risk for all. So a great deal of health people buy it as a hedge against the possibility of getting sick, which subsidizes those who do eventually get sick.
With out that shared burden, the sick would not be able to afford their treatments, and likely adequate treatments wouldn't be invented.
It is unreasonable to think that any individual could on their own pay for the care required by a catastrophic illness. And since there is no way to predict who will have a catastrophic illness it works out well that there is a pool of people there to buy the insurance and never use it.
Yes it would be great if everyone had enough money to pay their medical bills and receive adequate treatment. That is not the case for anyone with a major illness, however, and for many even a minor illness or accident can be devistating to their ability to cover their other expenses like food and shelter.
Medicine isn't cheap, and so this is why I took your suggestion that if people would just pay their own bills (as if those who don't pay thier medical bills now are uniformly shiftless ne're do wells) there wouldn't be a problem.
It's great if you and your family have all been lucky enough to never suffer from a catastrophic illness...that puts you in a very small minority. Most people even if they've avoided such tragedies themselves have been touched in one way or another by a similar situation and thusly understand the need for insurance, just in case.
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 18:30 |
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All I can say is. If the government gets involved the cost is going to go up one way or the other by taxes or healthcare costs or both. I'd like someone to name something the government did that was more cost effective than before the government got involved.
We all know how dysfunctional the government is after all. Red tape and all.
__________________Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 19:24 |
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Well for starters tim, the Post Office is actually much cheaper than any of it's industry rivals with a much better track record for on time and accurate delivery.
Beyond that, every nation on earth with a public health care system pays less than the U.S. does for better overall outcomes.
Now yes, there can be a good deal of graft and coruption in government contracts (see Blackwater), however this is something different. When the state contracts with a private firm there is often a lot people looking for their piece of the pie on the contractors side and others hoping to run some of the money through their district on the government side.
With a public option the governmnet isn't likely to contract with a private contractor for it's administration thusly limiting the hands looking for a mark up, and as it is a point of service product, there is no incentive or practical way to turn it into pork for a specific district.
The track record on government health care is generally speaking rather good. This is why no democracy in the world has gotten rid of it's government healthcare system, despite the socialist implications of it all.
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 19:41 |
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Thanks for the apology Matches, it is appreciated.
__________________But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 19:51 |
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If you ever point to me that I am being a jerk, or worse yet am wrong on a fact, I will always rapidly admit my failures. Thank you for accepting my appologie.
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| Posted: 25 Nov 2009 23:16 |
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The Post Office is in debt too I believe.
__________________Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
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| Posted: 26 Nov 2009 21:39 |
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Well, you did say anything about cost effectiveness, simply cost.
Recent market downturns aside, the post office has historically been ranked exceptionally high for efficiency of service, and cost to consumers and tax payers.
A large problem for the post office is that the way people communicate has changed drasticly in recent decades, and although the post office has adapted where it could, it's service isn't being used in the way it once was. That has nothing to do with it's efficiency, but it's usefullness as a provider of a service. I don't think medicine will go out of fashion any time soon, so I think if a national health care system were put in place it wouldn't have the problems that the post office is now facing.
All that being said, the government has a number of inefficiencies, however, those inefficiencies are what make it the most logical provider for these services.
Going back to the post office, there simply isn't a market to have door to door service in many parts of the united states, if it was left up to the private sector the cost to mail a letter would vary wildly throughout the nation, and no one provider would be able to acheive the efficiency of scale that the government can. Does that sound familiar? It should it's what our healthcare system looks like.
There are many products and services that the private sector could probably do better and cheaper than the government. I am not inclinde looking at the real world examples in the U.S. and other industrialized nations that health care is one of them.
The facts are pretty much there, Single payer works the best, followed closely by a public private partnership and heavy regulation. The U.S. system simply isn't very good, and would be much better if we had a single payer system.
That's not to say that there aren't costs to single payer, but the costs are vastly outweighed by the benefit.
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