HEALTHCARE THREAD

I think you'd get a pass for that one. xp

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Downwardly Mobile: The Unexpected Cost of Being Uninsured

OK, I am waaaaay far left in regards to universal coverage, but I would never have claimed that the disparity of results was this bad when it comes to emergent trauma mortality rate (which seems like one of the few places where the playing field would approach evenness). And yet, there are the numbers. I am kind of stunned. This is amazing and ideally will be cited by every single senator who supports healthcare reform. (Also the coauthorship of Gawande makes me hopeful that this will turn into the cornerstone of a rad New Yorker article.)

whoa

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/quebec-facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html

when NPR pundits doubt that something as "EXPANSIVE" as the Senate bill will pass, you know we're fucked.

END THE TWO MOTHERFUCKING GIULIANI WARS, we can afford it.

Stupak-like motion tabled by Senate, 54-45. PHEW.

whoah was honestly not expecting that to happen

pleasantly surprised!

Meanwhile this Ezra Klein column is worth reading.

no-one seems clear on whether the public option was dropped or not. news said yes, reid said no, apparently there is some kind of pseudo thing

im prepared to beat the shit out of joe lieberman if it comes to it

i am not a violent person but

no jury in america would convict you

soooo does anyone know whats going on

I don't get how allowing 55+ citizens to "buy into" Medicaid solves anything; this is more feinting.

ppl 55 to 65 are the most likely to be un-/underinsured and have the worst health of those not covered by medicare. it's a fair chunk of ppl that should be covered.

yeah it's a feint but with the lieberman and snowe show what are you gonna do?

fuckin Lieberman. tyranny of the minority here.

can someone explain this stupid "national insurance program run by private insurers" plan cuz I don't see how this accomplishes anything.

i don't really get that part. the only good signs of this that I see is that it will now be illegal to rescind coverage or deny coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (that is, that's really the thing I'm most concerned about since my family now falls into this boat), and I think there is a price cap on how much they can raise the costs on people with conditions. But there also doesn't seem to be anythings stated about the level of care required; you can have 'insurance' that refuses to pay for anything substantial. Is there anything in the bill to keep that from happening?

A death panel.

and not to be redundant but I wish all kinds of horrible cancer on Lieberman. Ass cancer. Brain cancer. Ronnie James Dio's cancer. in fact, just take all the cancer afflicting everybody else and give it to ol' Joe, that'd be good.

Why? His gold-plated health care will pay for it.

gold doesn't cure everything

yes it does!

to be fair even with a public option in place this would be a concern. the government doesn't do anything I want it to do for me in a timely manner so I wouldn't have a huge amount of faith that they would extend the highest quality of care either. I don't know how you get to that point. It seems almost insurmountable.

Anti-trust exemptions will definitely remain in here. In ten years it will be single-payer but instead of the gov't it will be Too-Big-To-Fail AmeriCross Corporation. Unlike a gov't plan we won't be able to vote for changes but will nonetheless have to bail them out when they've jacked up premiums so high no one can afford to pay.

way to go dumbshits

Yay for a government report to include the phrase "insurance death spiral".

Senate has completely fucked this up imho

eh, there were similar reports about the house bill, werent there?

no. not the same thing either, as the Senate is coming later in the process. there's not going to be anything resembling a public option in the Senate bill, it looks like. and the compromises they've proposed so far have not secured the support of the necessary "moderate" votes, AND they're ridiculously underfunded and expensive, AND they don't accomplish what a public option would.

in short, Pelosi delivered. Reid isn't going to.

these guys

if the bill still prohibits private insurers from denying based on pre-existing conditions, jacking up rates on people because of those conditions, dropping people because of those conditions, and gets rid of lifetime and annual caps (apparently it didn't do the latter but they were working on fixing that), then I think it is still a vital and awesome bill even without the rest of this. do I want a public option? absolutely yes. do I care if that public option is only available to people 55 years old? no, because selfishly, neither I nor anyone in my family falls into that category right now. But we are potentially fucked by the pre-existing stuff and any laws that go into place that will keep me from going into bankruptcy because my wife has cancer are good by me.

that reason essay is so weird. like, he acknowledges that france actually has a better health care system. but he opposes the things that make it possible. but he acknowledges that the u.s. system is nearly broken. but he can't bring himself to actually support socialized medicine in america. so he'll just keep going to france to get his socialized medicine there. while fantasizing about some mythical "market-driven" american system that will somehow someday be better than the one we have.

This just in...

There will be no healthcare reform...EVER!

That is all.

that.... essay made my head hurt a little

Former Democratic National chairman Howard Dean, a major public option supporter who also backed the Medicare expansion, told Vermont Public Radio: “This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

srsly wow

howard dean way not otm

how the fuck have these shitting fucks fucked this thing up this fucking badly, is what i would sincerely like to know

i wonder if that's dean's way of getting lieberman to vote yes

tracer have you lived under a parliament for so long you have forgotten...

the distance between campaign promise and policy execution is about 1 trillion bazillion times longer and more assfucked here than anywhere except lebanon

*dean scream*

i actually am a fan of guy, surprised at his assessment of the proper course of action. agree this is the collapse of hcr tho. for now.

we're #2 but we try harder.

xp

what do u mean by "the collapse" hunter?

depriving insurance companies of the ability to rescind coverage or deny coverage for pre-existing conditions are very valuable insurance regulations. i guess i should wait til i read more on the bill, but i dont see much more.

i dont have a lot of faith these changes will make insurance more affordable for the majority of people who need coverage. insurance is made more affordable when lower risk people who are able to pay for coverage enter the pool. how does this accomplish that? it is designed to allow high risk or expensive people to have access to insurance (which is v. important obv). how does it address healthcare costs? does it still have provisions taxing goldplated plans or subsidies for lower income people?

basically the regulations without the public option will mean an increase in costs. I can't believe anyone is arguing the opposite, this seems baldly obvious.

goole yeah, the contrast has made me realize (realise?) how weak the national parties in the u.s. actually are. just look at the party chairmen. neither of them runs the show. there is no there there! i dunno, i should read up more on the parliamentary whip system, somehow the 'governing party' generally manages to get major policy enacted in the u.k. without months of protracted, public sausage-making.