Money talks and politicans kiss the hind-end of money and the people (and corporations) who have it. This whole health care reform thing has been an incredible disappointment.

I sometimes wonder if my Repiglican friends hope that by denying affordable health care to the less wealthy and minority populations, that they can somehow withstand the influx of less wealthy and minority folks and keep Oregon "all white - all the time". The joke - on my Repiglican friends - is that the birth rate among the less wealthy and minority folks is MUCH higher than our white upper-middle-class peers and as a result, even if you deny life-saving medical care to the less fortunate, you and your country club pals will still be a minority in the Western US in less than 20 years.

Not very refined or politically correct thoughts, but my thoughts as I read the details of how this Dem "Majority" is handling health care reform and how the Repigs and their corporate allies are opposing it.

I am sickened by the Finance Committee bill. Baucus negotiated against himself and got no Republican support, no public option, higher health care costs, and new control over insurance company abuses.

Will this pass in the committee? If Wyden and Rockefeller vote no can it be stopped?

I meant to say "no new" and not "new." The insurance regulation is weakened in the Finance bill.

The Democratic 'Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight' plugs itself in the foot again.

They're all about control, not serving the public.

I been a'tellin ya.

In 2008, my firm built Max Baucus's campaign website. I speak only for myself.]

AHA!

Too many politicians are the best that campaign money can buy. Baucus among them. Democrats are generally 'less worse' on important issues than republicans but often times not enough.

Our job is not finished. We needs to elect more and BETTER Democrats who will pass legislation to help the many, including against their will, our republican friends, instead of helping the few that donate large sums of money to their re-election campaigns.

OK, so Kari Chisholm is apparently not too discriminating about his clients. "What's that? You're an insurance company whore? Look, one question for you, Max: what color is your money?"

This is where some "serious" individual is supposed to pipe up and intone--preferably in a deep baritone--about the need for "setting aside partisan differences in order to reach common ground and produce a bill that will benefit the American people." While you are distracted by this rhetoric, your pocket will be picked. Again.

Ron Wyden embarrassed himself by participating in the charade that this committee amounted to anything of substance. I suppose if he and Rockefeller and Kerry can amend this worthless product into something of value, then go for it. But it looks to me that it will be disregarded in large part when the Senate puts a bill together, particularly when it gets to Conference.

The choices we have now are better than the choices we would have under a single payer system. Granted the system is heavily employer based, discriminatory, and with a heavy share of faults that could be fixed incrementally.

In Chris Lowe's post on a weak public option, the choice of Medicare for all was brought up. I asked several questions specifically addressing values, insurance rates, and whether we would have the choice of a dozen or so private health insurance carriers under "Medicare for all."

The responses I got from Chris Lowe is that Medicare for all would be single payer and the private health insurance industry would cease to exist leaving the health care consumer with only one choice.

I am sorry, but if I am learning anything from the dialogue here, then choice and single payer do not mesh. You have no choice except the single payer if a single payer system is instituted. Myself like many other Americans want dozens of choices at both the individual and employer-based health insurance level. I don't want my only choice being some Government run program where I am financially penalized if I choose to not participate.

If my only choice is the single payer system, then give me the status quo system for the rest of my life.

"Ron Wyden embarrassed himself by participating in the charade that this committee amounted to anything of substance."

That's a pretty lame criticism. Senator Wyden was excluded from the Baucus Gang of Six, as was Rockefeller, Schumer and Cantwell. Beyond that, you didn't really expect him to announce ahead of time that his own committee is a worthless pile of junk.

RyanLeo,

The insurance lobby is using "choice" as a red herring, one that you gobble right down. There is NO choice for the millions of people who cannot afford any health insurance, or who are denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. There is no good choice as healthcare consumes ever more of GDP, causing individuals to go bankrupt, companies to either go under or drop health insurance for employees, and our national economy to sag under the load.

What's of real importance is:

• quality of healthcare

• affordability of healthcare

• access to healthcare for everyone

Dan Petegorsky wrote:

"You're confusing who provides care with who pays for that care"

No he's not.

He that pays the piper calls the tune.

If 100% of your income comes from the government and there is no option to get paid any other way, then you are their de facto employee.

The government will dictate how many of what kind of physician practice where. How? By how many procedures of X kind they are willing to pay for in that area.

Look at Vancouver as they reduce the number of surgeries that the government will pay for.

It's called rationing and the purse controls the distribution of care just as much as controlling the price.

Jake Leander wrote:

"There is NO choice for the millions of people who cannot afford any health insurance"

Nonsense.

First there is already Medicaid. Ever heard of it?

Next, I personally know lots of people who, without insurance, have gone to the hospital and delivered a child and walked out with a payment schedule.

It's called paying out of your pocket, and lots of people do it.

Hospitals and doctors are actually pretty good at working with someone who is unwilling to pay but who cannot pay it all at once.

Medicare is all about choice so I don't understand several of the above posts. My mom chooses her clinics, doctors, specialists, and whether to receive or not receive various forms of diagnosis or treatment. All without costing her a cent after Medicare and her Medicare Supplement pay. I understand that primary care docs (in particular) don't like the reimbursement rate, but otherwise what covered senior citizen can complain about Medicare? Go to a care center or retirement home and ask how they like Medicare. They do.

The problem is that the cost of Medicare is bleeding younger generations dry. That might have been solved with a Medicare-For-All program combined with payroll taxes and some reasonable reforms to limit Medicare costs (particularly for questionable medical devices such as scooters for fat people, etc.)

Obama and the Dems have screwed this up royally.

Greg D wrote:

"The problem is that the cost of Medicare is bleeding younger generations dry."

Congress has spent Medicare and Social Security money that it was supposed to have placed in a trust fund.

Why would anyone want to trust government now with everyone's health care?

Social Security and Medicare are criminal enterprises, little more than Ponzi schemes.

Any private corp that managed a trust in this manner would have been prosecuted and it's management jailed.

Democrats owned congress for decades and bled the country dry. And now , they're baaaaackkkk.

I can't understand why Wyden wouldn't be thrilled with Baucus's proposed Insurance Industry Profit Protection Act of 2009. I mean, what's not to like. No choice or protections for consumers, no limitation on insurance rates (you know they're going WAY up to compensate for the additional risks the insurance companies will be taking on), no cost controls, no improvement in provider reimbursement rates, and no real additional access. And, on top of it all, a big fat tax on lower middle class folks who still won't be able to afford insurance. Come on Ron, get on board the crazy train.

Dan Petergorsky,

Yeah, I know about Canada's health care system from several family friends who are Canadian. Overall, they are satisfied with the system, yet there are a few caveats:

1. Under Canada's single payer system, if you get sick come the end of the budget year, then expect to get sent home a bottle of pills because of a lack of budgetary funds to give you your needed health care.

2. Explicit, discriminatory rationing of health care against the elderly. No hip replacements for those after 65 years of age and mandatory hospice care even if you want to stay alive.

3. Waiting lines for potentially life saving medical care. Need a CAT scan because you felt a lump in your breast? Get in line and wait 3 months for it. Need a heart stint? Forget it unless you are wealthy.

I can go on about the inadequacies of the Canadian health care system. I will say that it works for the majority of Canadians, but that it would be an extremely hard sell here in the United States where Americans have become entitled to a bevy of health care choices (albeit limited by those providers who are contracted with the health insurance) and health care on demand when they want it.

Jake Leander,

I do not believe that health care is a right. I believe that health care is a privilege just like driving an automobile. If you have the necessary funds and willingness to fill out the necessary paperwork and undergo the physicals, then you have what it takes to be one of those privileged to have health insurance.

That being said, I believe that the Government can provide catalytic action when it comes to reforming health care. Such action would require incremental reforms such as:

1. Making it illegal for health insurance companies to use pre-existing conditions to deny health insurance coverage.

2. Making it illegal for health insurance companies to cherry pick healthy individuals over individuals with a long medical history.

3. Giving a $3500-5000 tax credit to every working age individual to purchase private health insurance for themselves and their family.

4. Change the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement system from one based on paying for procedure to one that pays for individual outcomes. For example, if a doctor performs a triple bypass, then they are paid portions of what the procedure costs every year for up to 5 years. If a triple bypass costs $200,000 then the doctor receives $40,000 per year. If the patient dies prior to the 5th year, then the doctor will not receive the remaining payments. If the patient dies less than a year out, then the doctor nets $10,000.

5. Enact laws that require hospitals and health care providers to be transparent on costs so that a 5th grader could understand and agree with a hospital and/or health care bill. No more hiding reimbursement schedules between individual hospitals and private health insurance companies. If you are not transparent about each individual's health care costs, then you will be blacklisted from Medicare and Medicaid.

That is a start.

RyanLeo wrote:

"Change the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement system from one based on paying for procedure to one that pays for individual outcomes."

I gotta say this sounds like a very bad idea.

Wouldn't it simply cause some doctors to avoid operating on risky cases?

Why should the doc sweat blood and end up with peanuts?

An outcomes based approach makes the assumption that the end game is in the complete (or nearly complete) control of the physician. And it's not.

Salesmen get paid commission based on valid sales, but I don't think doctors should only be fully paid if you recover.

It would certainly discourage Drs from attempting new or innovative treatments and procedures IMHO.

Kari Chisholm sez: "I'll also point out that after the election, Senator Baucus gave a stirring defense of a public option. I have no idea where his bill-writing process went off the rails."

This is a mystery? His "stirring defense of the public option" didn't mean shit. The "bill-writing process went off the rails" because Baucus is a shill for insurance industry lobbyists.

Kari, it takes a special sort of talent not to see what is directly in front of your nose.

No hip replacements for those after 65 years of age and mandatory hospice care even if you want to stay alive.

Bullshit

My Father in Vancouver had a hip replacement in 2007 when he was 79. No long wait, no having to justify before a death panel. He had a home health care worker come in when he got home & rehab was a snap.

Kari, jdw rightly points out that it's less important what a pol says and more important what he does.

Kari, your statement about lying politicians vs. honest ones is both irrelevant and a distraction.

LINK HERE to information about Baucus's top campaign contributors, with excerpt:

"Max Baucus is emerging as the key roadblock between Americans and true health care reform. I wonder who gives money to Senator Baucus? For the 2005-to-present period here are the top ten contributors to his campaign committee and leadership PAC:"

1. Schering-Plough Corp $86,200 Pharmaceuticals
2. Amgen Inc $65,250 Biotechnology
3. Blue Cross/Blue Shield $62,350 Health Insurance
4. UST Inc $61,950 Chewing tobacco/alcohol
5. New York Life Insurance $59,150 Life & Health Insurance
6. JPMorgan Chase & Co $58,100 Banking/Insurance
7. American International Group $51,750 Insurance/Fin. Services
8. Aetna Inc $51,250 Health Insurance
9. Goldman Sachs $47,900 Financial Services
10. DaVita Inc $47,850 Health Care

So tell me why the concept "follow the money" should not apply to Max Baucus.

I really could care less that Max Baucus checks "Democratic Party" on his voter registration card. If he's a tool of the insurance industry, he should be called out.

As for Paul G. and "throwing Blue Dogs under the bus", pardon my usage, but what a fucked-up line of reasoning! Is the idea that we should sign on to half-assed "reform" legislation--sort of a No Insurance Company Left Behind Act--and thereby throw MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WITHOUT ADEQUATE HEALTH INSURANCE under the bus? All in order to give those Blue Dogs some political cover? Maybe those Blue Dogs need to do the right thing for the entire nation instead of cravenly pandering to their home populations of birthers, deathers, and Glenn Beck devotees.

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Forgot to add this: this discussion thread--Kari's pitiable excuses for Max Baucus, and the implication that we have to settle for "half a loaf" and pass a No Insurance Company Left Behind Act--makes me want to apologize to the Naderites who occasionally comment here. No, I'm no fan of your man Ralph, but he's certainly not wrong when he calls out the craven corporatist pandering of some Democrats.

RyanLeo wrote,

If you have the necessary funds and willingness to fill out the necessary paperwork and undergo the physicals, then you have what it takes to be one of those privileged to have health insurance.

I don't care whether it's called a right or a privilege - privilege if you prefer. In a wealthy country like ours, everyone should enjoy the privilege of decent healthcare. This is not political philosophy; it is humanitarianism, or human decency if you prefer that term.

Joe White believes that it is "nonsense" to say there is NO choice for the millions of people who cannot afford any health insurance.

Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year—that’s 122 deaths a day—due to lack of health insurance. That’s the startling finding of a new study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

I suppose dying is a choice of sorts. Tell me, Joe White, do you you believe 45,000 freely choose death each year so they can be free of health insurance? To be straightforward, I find you rhetoric morally repugnant.

My son, as a child, lost a tooth due to Willamette Dental refusing to book a final appt for him before I lost my insurance. For two years he walked around with a temporary cover and COTTON WAD in his tooth b/c I could not get it taken care of. He lost the tooth.

Thank you Joe. Thank you for your vote.

I have chronic, debilitating pain that is continuous, and a blizzard of chronic sequelae (musculoskeletal) to complete lack of diagnosis or treatment offered uninsured me after a massive car wreck in Chile. I went without rather than run up medical debt and then stiff the doctors with the massive sums / debt load (IF any doctor wld have taken me without demanding full payments up front) that would have been unpayable for me.

Thank you Joe. I'm so grateful for your vote.

During that same period, my son, whose hand was broken in that crash, was hit by a basketball and the other paw broken. He is native. NARA said, "We have a peds ortho appt in six weeks.... would you like that?" and there was nothing else. I paid $189 out of unemployed pocket to get him in to a doctor. I could not afford to have him casted, nor followup care.

Thank you Joe. Forever grateful heart.

And, Joe, before you talk more repugnant shit to me assumpitvely.... I job searched ten hours a day and put out literally 40 - 60 apps a week on jobs I was fully qualified to do. Temp agencies were calling ME to see if I knew of contracts in the various realms in which I had strong skills and good name. Hah.

JDW - heheheheh. Good one.

Kari, I'm teasing you

Jake Leander wrote:

"Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year—that’s 122 deaths a day—due to lack of health insurance. That’s the startling finding of a new study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health."

yeah that is the 'objective' finding of a group pushing for a single payer system.

I really liked the last paragraph:

"However, the study’s authors concede that the research was conducted “at a single point in time” and that they did not validate their subjects’ insurance status."

Now THAT'S a 'scientific' study.

You sure know how to pick 'em , Jake.

rw, with your sweet disposition, I am at a loss to explain why no one would hire you.

Who wouldn't want someone in the office that blames others for everything that happens to them?

Hahahah. Good for you Joe.

Assumptive arse.

rw, take some damn responsibility. Surely you know that if you have difficulties in your life, it is your own damn fault.***

***This statement null and void if you are a GOP voter who needs Uncle Sam's help because your employer poisoned you with industrial toxins.

Thanks, JDW. I think those of you who know me overall know that I'm a complex mix of life's chances (the shit that happens to you and WILL get you if you are not blessed or lucky) as well as complicated and not always successful judgement!

The last ceremony I did, Joe White, was on a mountain top. I did NOTHING for three nights and two days, continuously on my feet in the elements(as possible) but take responsibility for the shape of my life, regrettable as I sometimes view it to be.

That is the core of this ceremony: I took responsibility, acknowledged accountability and made commitments to utterly essential change. It felt so good to stand just that way. I keep hoping this will last through the year till I next go on the Hill in June.

Joe White, black and white splitting are poor ways to approach life and other people. I hope you get to experience living and speaking a different way some day. My work and life deliver me the blessing of witness to the demanding complexity of life that allows me to occasionally abandon judgement and simply cherish the story, the journey.

You have no doubt forgotten already that the moment you spoke as a human to another human, I and others responded to you. Try it. It's a beautiful way to be.

rw wrote:

"I hope you get to experience....You have no doubt forgotten..."

Talk about assumptive. You take the cake.

<hr/>

The core of the argument on this health care thing is this:

Why must you destroy what others have in order to get what you think you deserve?

The overwhelming majority of Americans have and want to keep their insurance thru their employer.

But no, that's not good enough for the Democrats.

They want to set up a new system that will bankrupt the present insurance system in order to fix a problem that they've vastly overstated and understand very little about.

The overblown 'uninsured' numbers are largely illegal aliens and young healthy singles who don't want to put money into insurance they don't think they need.

Strip away those two groups and you're left with 'the real uninsured'. Many of those qualify for Medicaid due to their income.

So how many does that leave us with? Quite a few no doubt, but it is a small fraction compared to the huge number of aforementioned satisfied with their present situation.

Much of the reason that insurance is very expensive today (and it is, no doubt about it. I think it is too expensive) is due to cost-shifting and 'self insured' plans that get to bypass the state regulations in favor of lax federal oversight.

Instead of costly utopian systems built from the ground up on the ashes of the destroyed insurance industry, let's try some proper regulation and leveling of the playing field:

-- End 'self insured' exemptions from state law

-- End cost shifting onto the backs of those with private insurance

-- Allow individuals to form their own non-employment based groups to purchase group insurance and negotiate favorable rates like big corporations.

-- Allow everyone to establish HSA/MSA accounts

But, those don't give big bucks and big control to politicians, so I don't think too many politicians will propose those, unfortunately.

Again, Joe who knows everything and projects like a mo'fo: I've asked you to tell us a little bit more about yourself.

You say you are poorer than everyone here. Tell us about that. I know impoverished arch-conservatives in Indian Country.

You say you've raised more kids than anybody you bet. TEll us all about that. Are you a foster parent? Lovely. Are you a REAL birther? :)... hmmmm.

<h2>One asks for information so one can stop making assumptions. One is pummeled and ranted at for asking. Then jabbed repeatedly for being assumptive by the one who truculently refuses to speak to why he knows it all and is better than anyone else on the board. I can only adjudge your utterances by your utterances, given that you will not speak to how you've arrived at what appear to be mere opinions based in a very narrow range of life experiences.</h2>