A place for Liam to post essays, comments, diatribes and rants on life in general.

Those fond of Liam's humor essays, they have been moved here.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Yeah, and?

OK, so we're somehow surprised?

The "public option" in health care has been so watered down and so restricted that it's mostly only going to be available to the unprofitable people... and now the CBO comes back and says "It's going to cost more than current premiums to support", and anti-reform people are crowing that this proves it was a stupid idea to begin with.

So let's look at an analogy.

Let's consider when Sam Walton was starting Wal*Mart. He's got a good idea, and he sees the inefficiencies of the little, locally owned stores, and he says "I think I can take some of the inefficiency out of the system and thereby sell products more cheaply."

Now, let's imagine there was a powerful lobby group for the Mom and Pop shops. These lobbyists have given large amounts of money to a significant number of congressional leaders, and fed them the line that this new lower pricing is somehow bad for America. And they manage to work in regulation with Sam Walton that significantly reduces his ability to leverage his bulk purchasing into lower costs. And the Mom & Pop shops don't want to lose any paying customers, so another regulation is put into place that the new Wal*Mart stores will only be available to the poor and those who have been convicted of shoplifting, the people who don't really have access to the regular stores. And then, because that STILL feels to someone like too great a risk of competition, more regulation is added that says states can opt out of having Wal*Mart stores at all, so some states may just refuse to allow the stores in at all.

Do you think Wal*Mart would have been successful at that point? Oh, and by the way, we also pass a law at the same time that REQUIRES everyone to purchase certain goods that are only available from the Mom & Pop shops and from Wal*Mart (but again, from Wal*Mart only to the "undesirable" customer base).

And to top it all off, you don't even have any cost controls at all on the Mom & Pop shops, so while they're about to be handed a much larger customer base (from which they can skim the cream and leave the undesirables to the new Wal*Mart stores), they've also managed to convince a lot of people that this new legislation is somehow going to hurt them, so they're going to jack up their already high prices even higher. And why not, they have a legacy anti-trust exemption, so in some states, they're really the only game in town. No real competition, mandated customers, why the hell wouldn't they raise their prices insanely?

The Public Option isn't failing because it's a bad idea, it's failing because it's been so watered down by Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats as to become a joke.

Friday, October 16, 2009

They ALL Lie To Us

I was watching last night's "Countdown, with Keith Olbermann", and I got about 5 minutes into it and I had to turn it off, after Mr. Olbermann and Senator Grassley both lied to me.

Olbermann first, because his was the more egregious, in my view:

Olbermann was talking about Sen. Grassley's latest attempt to forestall health care reform, by claiming that "forcing every citizen to buy something violates the 10th Amendment", claiming that it'd be the first time in the history of this nation that the federal government had forced citizens to buy a product.

Olbermann breaks into the clip and says "Oh yeah? Heard of mandatory car insurance?"

This may not be well known, but car insurance isn't mandatory at the federal level. I know, because here in NH, it's not even mandatory at all. Which means that it's not the same situation at all. The 10th Amendment, for those who don't recall, is the one that says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.". Which means that BY DEFINITION, it does not restrict the powers of the States, it restricts ONLY the power of the federal government.

Thus, anything the states do CANNOT violate the 10th Amendment. Therefore, Grassley's argument may hold some water.

In fact, and this is the part that really galls me, a few seconds later, Olbermann replays the clip, with a little more context, and Grassley says something like "...it may be okay for the States to do it, but it's a violation of the 10th Amendment for us to...", and Olbermann repeats his line about car insurance. So not only did he get the law wrong, he actually ignored Grassley when he specifically LISTED the legal issue in question.

Now, on to Senator Grassley: His lie is a bit less blatant, so I'm almost tempted not to call it a lie, just a misdirection. His claim that the federal government has never previously required anyone to buy any service is also bogus. Let's talk about the Interstate Highway System. Let's talk about the NEA. Let's talk about lots of federal programs. OK, maybe Grassley can slip through by claiming that the government paying for something out of tax money isn't quite the same as forcing someone to buy a product. You want a perfect example?

Let's talk about inoculations.

And by the way, Mr. Grassley, let's remember that the Dems wanted a single payer system, paid for by taxes, and it was rejected out of hand, and while you might not like it, by your argument, it's more Constitutionally legal, because it'd be more like those examples above.

So I gave up on last night's Countdown. When both sides are lying to me, it's time to turn off the TV and go do something more mentally stimulating. Like a lobotomy.

And another thing...

Why won't anyone answer the damn question.

The question I keep hearing people ask is "If there is a public option, who would be eligible to choose it?"

And the answer is always "Look, if you like your current insurance, you can keep it."

Fine, that's just ducky, but what if someone *DOESN'T* like their current insurance? Most of the public option plans I've heard debated are limited to small businesses and the otherwise uninsured, and are not available to people who have insurance through their (larger) employer.

So what if I have an insurance company I really don't like, through my large company. Would I have the option to switch? If not, then it's really not that much competition, and that's the name of the game here.

I'm so sick of people "answering" questions with a statement that doesn't even begin to touch on the topic about which they were asked.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Health Insurance Reform

So, let me see if I understand this correctly. I admit, I haven't read all of the Senate Finance bill, but...

It requires all American citizens to have insurance.
It has minimal enforcement of the above.
It has no cost controls on the insurance companies.
It has no public option.
It does nothing to increase competition.
It makes rejecting anyone for insurance illegal.

So... tell me where I'm wrong here...

Doesn't this mean that:

A) a lot more people will buy into the system than before, giving the insurance companies a lot more customers.
B) with those customers required to have insurance, what little incentive there may currently be for insurance companies to keep their profit margin down goes almost entirely away.
C) this means that the insurance companies can charge even higher rates and deny even more claims, and we can't leave because we're required to have insurance.
D) add together the weak enforcement of the insurance mandate and the fact that insurance companies are enjoined from denying anyone coverage who applies for it, there are going to be people who say "the heck with that, I'm not paying for coverage when I don't need it", and will try to buy into the system only when/if they get sick.

So tell me how this bill does anything but guarantee rate increases?

Republicans water the bill down. Insurance companies get their bought Senators on both sides to water the bill down. And what we're left with is a license for those companies to make obscene profits at our expense, and this solves the problems we have with health care in this country how?

This is what I talked about when this whole health care thing started: There is no reform that works and solves all of the problems without at a minimum a strong public option, and better still, a single payer system. A system like TriCare and Medicare, both of which work quite nicely, thank you.

We have a real problem. I haven't run into too many people who disagree on that point (except, of course, for the insurance companies themselves). We need to solve it, and to do so, we need something radical. What they're proposing here will only make the problem worse... and then the people who argued for watering down the bill and argued against a public option or a single payer plan will, come a few years from now, be crowing about how they were right, and what a cluster-**** the "reform" was... without ever admitting or perhaps even realizing that it was they, themselves, who turned a vital reform into something that made the problem worse.

It makes me absolutely sick.

Friday, October 09, 2009

A Prediction

I've been meaning to post this for a few days, and I want to get to it before it's too late.

You want proof that the GOP will find ways to attack anything Obama does and spin it in a bad light: Just watch this story with the "additional troops for Afghanistan" recommended by the General.

If Obama doesn't send those troops, he'll be widely condemned for being weak on national defense, not listening to the generals on the ground, etc.

But if he DOES send those troops, he'll be widely condemned for breaking his campaign promise to bring our troops home and end the war.

And heaven forbid something goes wrong with either of those plans. If he sends more troops and we have a month with a spike in U.S. troop deaths, it will be "Breaking his promise, he sent more of our kids over there to die". If he doesn't, and there's an attack in this country, it'll be "The generals SAID they needed more troops. Obama didn't listen, and people died."

I have to admit, I've given up listening to the Fox News pundits. There's nothing fair or balanced about them. I don't mind the slant so much, I really don't. If they were consistent in their condemnations, if they were slanted towards the conservative ideology and applied that evenly, I'd have respect for them, even when I disagreed with them.

But they aren't slanted towards conservatism, they're slanted towards Republicans, and so they're not espousing an opinion, they're spewing propaganda. I'll pass, thanks.

 

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