http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/25/bruco-strong-eagle-eastwo_n_476642.html

oh my god if only that poor man could've gotten mental health care

[Edited on February 25, 2010 at 4:58 PM. Reason : Peace, we outta here.]

2/25/2010 4:58:17 PM

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=428

Quote :

"CBO and JCT now estimate that the legislation would yield a net reduction in deficits of $138 billion over the 10-year period."

Let me bold that

Quote :

"a net reduction in deficits of $138 billion over the 10-year period."

So much for "bankrupting America." Now go home, everyone.

2/25/2010 8:58:30 PM

^ That bill can spend $871B while "costing" negative $132B only because reforms intended to reduced the overall cost, like the Cadillac tax, fines, etc. are in effect immediately, while spending does not begin for a number of years. What happens when we get a decade with 10 years of spending? I'm not convinced that the second 10-year period would reduce the deficit, no matter what the CBO says now. Medicare, for example, was never estimated to cost nearly as much as we see currently.

2/25/2010 9:11:26 PM

God, do you really believe that?

Care to add in that Dr Fix? 200B? And there go your "savings" right there.

Next, consider the NEXT 10 yrs. You know after the ones where we had taxes for 10 and services for 6, and saved 132b?

Seriously, there is no fucknig way this saves any money. You would have to be very naive to believe you can provide more coverage to more people, throw away "premium discrimination", increase quality of care, and it SAVES money.

I didnt even mention them lowballing the hell out of it to begin with.

2/25/2010 9:17:49 PM

In this thread, eyedrb claims to have more economic knowledge than the Congressional Budget Office.

2/25/2010 9:34:17 PM

THe CBO is only allowed to go over the data or bill they are given God. With the numbers in the bill.

Look over your history of projected costs of medicare, SS, and medicaid. Shit, just look at Mass for thier projections. Its just common sense friend.

And the reason why broke out the dr. fix is SO the CBO numbers would come out. You also have ot remember its 10 yrs of tax for 6 yrs of service too. Thats not that hard to understand.

2/25/2010 9:38:48 PM

I wish I could find the source, I read an article several weeks ago that detailed how the CBO is basically an extension of whichever party is in power and that neither party will scold the CBO because they know once they are in power they'll be able to use it to push whatever agenda they are interested in.

Apparently Clinton (I think) fired a CBO head when they produced a number that wasn't what the administration wanted to see.

2/25/2010 9:48:36 PM

Paul Ryan did an amazing job today explaining the CBOs numbers and how it works.

2/25/2010 9:51:33 PM

deficit peacocks.

2/25/2010 9:51:58 PM

God I believe the medicare doctor fix bill is 204B. I think that much passed the house.

2/25/2010 9:58:26 PM

Treat Me Like a Dog: What Human Health Care Can Learn from Pet Care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasHbuizvwE

Yet another reason.com to hate Nixon.

2/26/2010 10:30:03 AM

^The idea of treating people as warmly as pets is nice, but saying humans have it worse because its harder to open a hospital than an animal clinic doesn't seem like a fair comparison. An animal clinic is more comparable to a single doctor practice or small family medical practice. Most small doctors offices I've been in are bigger and have more doctors than large vet clinics I've been to. Now there are some honest to goodness animal hospitals, like the Cary Veterinary Hopsital that has lots of doctors, conferences, is big enough to need elevators, but those are much rarer than human hospitals, not more common. So while I think the animal aspect of that video is pretty off base, the main point isn't.

Also, on the bipartisan insurance reform meeting:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

2/26/2010 11:05:45 AM

^ why do you keep post those same 4 pictures? Am i missing some hidden meaning or importance behind them?

[Edited on February 26, 2010 at 2:53 PM. Reason : aside from the fact they probably make you rock hard.]

2/26/2010 2:52:42 PM

Belongs in here

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/32767

Quote :

"REPORT: Insurance company rate hikes driven by greed, NOT underlying medical costs [UPDATED] "From 2000 to 2008, insurance premiums went up 97% for families and 90% for individuals. In the same time period, payments to providers like hospitals and doctors only went up 72%. Even worse, underlying medical inflation, calculated from the Consumer Price Index, went up only 39%. In short, over the last eight years premiums almost doubled, but medical inflation went up only 40%. Premiums rose two times faster, and over three times faster than wages, which only rose 29% in the same time period.""

3/3/2010 9:17:59 AM

You need a better arguement.

Profits for insurance companies is only 3-4%.

If you take all of the insurance companies profits, ALL of them, you could provide healthcare for everyone for 2 days.

Get a better boogieman.

The increase in cost could be bc the population is getting older, people are using more drugs, going to the doctors more, and having more unhealthy lifestyles. I dunno, just a shot in the dark.

3/3/2010 9:30:57 AM

Profits are a funny thing.

If you just look at the profits that affect shareholders (the people who DON'T make decisions like rate hikes), then yeah 3-4% look right.

But those profits are calculated after bonuses and pay raises for executive level employees (the people who DO decide on rate hikes).

And hey, let's look at Anthem's 39% rate hike. 39 executives got bonuses of more than one million dollars and 27 million was spent on executive retreats.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100224/pl_mcclatchy/3435378

What is and isn't profit isn't as clear cut as you want people to believe.

3/3/2010 10:04:47 AM

hey guys which part of my income statement do payroll expenses appear on

is it the same as the one for profits

3/3/2010 10:06:34 AM

do you have a payroll?

3/3/2010 10:12:16 AM

(pretend i'm an insurance company)

3/3/2010 10:12:54 AM

pretend

3/3/2010 10:41:21 AM

here's a hint

payroll is an expense and not profit

as timswar pointed out

i realize that was hard for you

seriously check out ligon as Solinari suggested

3/3/2010 10:45:46 AM

Quote :

"And hey, let's look at Anthem's 39% rate hike. 39 executives got bonuses of more than one million dollars and 27 million was spent on executive retreats."

Fine, if we only look at those bonuses as profits, then profits represented a tiny fraction of one percent of company revenue. You could eliminate every penny of bonuses and they could reduce rates a fraction of one percent. (I didn't bother checking company revenue, I'm just guessing).

3/4/2010 12:07:08 AM

Romney's book does a pretty good job at demonstrating how the GOP should be supporting Obama's plan

Quote :

"Romney's discussion of health reform is, from a partisan perspective, comically off-message. (How could he know what today's GOP message would be? He probably finished writing the book months ago.) Remove a little anti-Obama boilerplate and Romney's views become indistinguishable from the president's. They even rely on the same MIT economist!"

http://www.slate.com/id/2246733/

3/4/2010 10:11:45 AM

Well Romney is from Mass. and hows that plan working out for them? Already over budget.

It doenst seem like a stretch that he would be similar.

That is one reason I didnt like romney.

3/4/2010 10:20:47 AM

Quote :

"John Sides has a good catch from the Washington Post/Harvard poll of Massachusetts special election voters. By a 68-27 margin, voters in last Tuesday's election supported the universal health care law in Massacuhsetts; this included a majority of Scott Brown voters!"

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/massachusetts-liked-universal-health.html


And good for you for not liking him, but he was the highest-ranking viable candidate in the CPAC straw poll.

3/4/2010 10:26:05 AM

Just a little bit of info on RomneyCare (Obamacare beta)

already 47M over budget for 2010

Will cost taxpayers 900M next year alone

Mass has the highest premiums in the US and rising. They pay 27 percent more on health care services, per capita, than the national average. Those costs, contrary to what were promised, have been going up faster here than nearly everywhere else.

Its so bad that they are considering price fixing or capitation. (which means doctors get paid a fixed price per patient)

And the end result is that the uninsured in Mass have gone from 6 to 3 percent.

3/4/2010 10:37:37 AM

Quote :

"already 47M over budget for 2010"

Cadillac tax and Medicare cuts will take care of this.

Quote :

"Mass has the highest premiums in the US and rising."

Which is why we need a public option.

Quote :

"They pay 27 percent more on health care services, per capita, than the national average."

That's because they're getting more health care services, per capita, than the national average. They're also a wealthier state, so I'm sure they pay for for cars, houses, and everything else, as well.

Quote :

"they are considering price fixing or capitation."

I think the federal government should consider this for Medicare, too. Maybe doctors would stop using MRIs to diagnose coughs.

Quote :

"And the end result is that the uninsured in Mass have gone from 6 to 3 percent."

3/4/2010 10:47:51 AM

Mass has universal coverage. Prices were going to go down once we got insurance to all those uninsured. And it will only cost X. LOL Sounds SO familar.

Quote :

" think the federal government should consider this for Medicare, too. Maybe doctors would stop using MRIs to diagnose coughs. "

haha. But still hold the liablity? Yeah, a more likely scenerio is that the doctor wont see you at all.

3/4/2010 11:00:25 AM

We can define what sort of diligence is required to avoid lawsuits, as well.

3/4/2010 11:03:03 AM

The Cadillac Tax has been all but killed off by the unions. It's been set to plans so expensive that virtually no one will be affected.

Medicare cuts further contribute to the insolvency of the program. It's disingenuous to apply those savings to this health care bill when the looming Medicare crisis must be addressed.

3/4/2010 11:08:47 AM

Quote :

"It's been set to plans so expensive that virtually no one will be affected."

On my way to work this morning I heard a report on how the tax was set too low for small businesses.


My major issue is that the current bill puts the tax off until 2018. Like someone's not going to cancel it in the meantime.

3/4/2010 11:10:39 AM

The Presidents plan (which should prevail) sets the Cadillac Tax threshold very high, almost double the average cost of current plans. It's not likely to affect too many people or businesses.

3/4/2010 11:18:27 AM

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/our-own-greek-tragedy//print/

Great read on where we are heading.

3/4/2010 12:00:01 PM

^ Good read. A bit sensationalist, but still well put together. Let us all hope another unforeseen technological innovation - a la automobiles or computers - comes along shortly to prop everything up. In my mind our hopes are that or political sensibility and personal responsibility. So yeah, pretty much that technology thing.

3/4/2010 8:34:47 PM

^^ seems like he's saying we need to start having more kids.

3/4/2010 10:04:40 PM

that's for what immigration is.

all those european countries have long histories of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. The US on the other hand has a history and tradition of immigration.

3/4/2010 10:07:21 PM

^4 He just quotes a lot of statistics but doesn't connect them in a meaningful way. Also, he goes on about how doomed the Greeks are without children. He states himself that our birthrate is 2.1 (and it happens to be increasing), thus our situation is very different.

3/5/2010 9:06:24 AM

Ok ok ok, I can see you're a man who's hard to convince. Tell you what, I'll give you increased coverage, no rejection for pre-existing conditions, no cancelling of your policy just because you've gotten sick, this lovely set of ginsu knives, and we'll throw in Rush Limbaugh leaving the country!

Now if that doesn't sell you nothing will.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/09/limbaugh-exile-health-care/

[Edited on March 9, 2010 at 7:14 PM. Reason : Billy Mays I'm not...]

3/9/2010 7:13:33 PM

What's the beef with allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines? Does it have to do with licensing or differences in medical practices/definitions from state to state?

3/9/2010 7:50:24 PM

I think the argument goes, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, is that you don't want to have a race to the bottom. You don't want one state to wipe away all consumer protection laws and then every insurance company in the nation locate their HQ there, and end up with no protections at all, so you want some level of regulation to allow intrastate competition without ending up with the race to the bottom.

3/9/2010 7:59:43 PM

then pass a law mandating minimum standards and let loose the dogs of war

3/9/2010 8:09:04 PM

That only works if the people working for competition across state lines are also willing to allow more Federal-level restrictions on Ins. companies.

Unfortunately, ideologically it doesn't work out with our current political parties.

3/9/2010 8:18:37 PM

no you idiot - you remove some and add a few... its called compromise

compare/contrast it to the democrat's notion of compromise: "here's a bill go vote for it so we can say its bipartisan"

3/9/2010 8:28:26 PM

oh, as opposed to the Republican idea of compromise

" i won't vote for it unless you do these things I want"

"you did these things I wanted, I still won't vote for it"

compromise doesn't exist in health care reform. neither side wants to.

3/9/2010 8:55:07 PM

you know, you can't take a bill and ignore one side completely during its crafting and throw in some "bipartisan sprinkles" at the end and have a bipartisan process. That's all this shit is at this point. Bipartisan sprinkles.

3/9/2010 9:33:05 PM

Sure you can.

You simply say "give us what your ideas are" for several months and wait, wait, wait, for the other side to actually come in with ideas.

In the meantime you court specific members of the opposing party and work with them to try and craft something you think will work for the party as a whole.

Eventually (in this case 6 months later) the opposing party gets off their asses and actually puts something forward to you, and then you go in and actually agree with them on certain things and work with them.

Kinda like the Dems have been doing, for the last 6 months.

Oh, and it helps that a lot of these healthcare reform ideas were already parts of the GOP platform, so there's a nice reference to go to.

"ignore one side" my ass. The Dems have been catching shit for months because they've been trying TOO hard to compromise and the Republicans haven't wanted to play ball until the last month or so.

Of course, with Republicans threatening to just repeal everything when they get in power I'm not sure there should be a reasonable expectation to compromise. The Dems have been giving in to conservatives the whole time and have gotten nothing in return (No single payer from the get-go, no public option, no medicare buy-in, no coverage for abortions, etc..).

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 6:51 AM. Reason : .]

3/10/2010 6:45:59 AM

I don't get it, I paid for the most expensive dental insurance I'm offered and yet I'm still going to have to pay $550 out of pocket for wisdom teeth removal. They'll pay 80% of the extraction fee but only 50% for anesthesia, the logic apparently being that not everyone has to be put to sleep?

This is the kind of shit that is broken and fucked up about the process. It's simply impossible to know in reading through the 50 pages of services to know what is covered and what isn't.

3/10/2010 6:51:14 AM

Quote :

"the logic apparently being that not everyone has to be put to sleep"

I had five teeth taken out two weeks ago (three wisdom teeth and two premolars) without being put to sleep. The local they give you will keep you pain free unless you have some kind of anxiety. Even the impacted wisdom tooth I had removed a week later from the oral surgeon was done with a local anesthetic which involved drilling and cutting and all kinds of bloody fun. I just didn't see the need for a $500 nap.

3/10/2010 7:18:48 AM

The GOP has nothing to lose by refusing to cooperate with Democrats on healthcare. All outcomes of such refusal are good for them:

-If Democrats cave in to a wholly Republican approach to health-care reform, the GOP can take the glory and win at the polls (assuming the calls for tort reform are genuine, and not simply a facade)
-If Democrats continue to try and fail to pass their own version of health-care reform, they'll lose at the polls for failing to achieve anything

Compromise would only hurt the Republican Party, regardless of whether it's good for America.

3/10/2010 8:58:37 AM

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/03/obama_would_pay_for_overhaul_w.html

2.9% tax on investment income - because what America needs is less saving!

3/10/2010 9:45:39 PM