Jack & Jill Politics

that was a good pic.

Volker to the rescue.

Bernake's such a joke. Wait, I take that back; he aint. Our system, by allowing the Bernakes and timmy wonders of the world is such a joke.

Saw this earlier….my gosh, AF's gangstah! Lol.

If you cut off the straight ends, it will grow faster.

21% of People in MA Still Forgo Necessary Medical Care
By: emptywheel Thursday December 17, 2009 8:09 am

I tweeted this factoid yesterday, but wanted to post on it too, because I think it illustrates the difference bewteen health insurance and health care.

A number of supporters of the current Senate bill have been pointing to RomneyCare to argue that mandates and exchanges can be wildly successful in providing care. But a September 2009 Kaiser Commission review of the MA experience had this to say:

According to a March 2009 Urban Institute report, health reform has improved access to health care services for newly insured and previously insured adults. Over ninety percent of adults in Massachusetts have a usual source of care and most reported seeing a doctor in the previous year. However, the affordability of health care remains a barrier to receiving care for some residents. Of the total population, 21 percent went without needed care in the previous year because of cost. People with disabilities and those in fair and poor health experienced the greatest barriers to accessing care.

There is some good in this snippet. It says that people–presumably some of them for the first time in a while–are getting primary care. But it’s also saying that more than one-fifth of them are forgoing medically necessary care because the health insurance they have is too stingy to make that medically necessary care affordable.

The MA program is not dissimilar to the Senate bill. It allows for policies with deductibles of up to $4000 for families and other out-of-pocket fees, though it actually has lower out-of-pocket limits than the Senate bill. What MA considers to be an affordable premium is not all that different from what would be required under the Senate bill. (While I don’t think all the Senate subsidy levels have been released, making a one-to-one comparison impossible, it appears that the Senate bill offers an affordability opt-out for the affluent–families making $114,401–that the MA program doesn’t have, but requires the middle class to pay higher premiums–$441/month versus $364/month for a family making $66,150; go figure, the House of Lords screwed the Middle Class again).

So we should assume that the Senate bill would have similar outcomes as the MA program (though with a much weaker mandate, it would achieve much lower levels of coverage). And one outcome appears to be that the middle class is being forced to buy insurance, but that insurance is not making health care affordable when people need it the most.

It’s one thing to require people to buy insurance if it is affordable and it guarantees that it’ll actually get them the care they need. But if it doesn’t (and the Senate bill wouldn’t for the middle class), then it just becomes a wealth shift from the middle class to the health care industry.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/12/17/21…

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=31422
Thanks, HuffPo
by John Cole

And it turns out that the comments from Howard Dean that I labeled unadulterated idocy and that completely got my knickers in a full twist- he never made them:

Several outlets, including the Huffington Post, reported Dean’s comments in the context that he had soured on the president because of the concessions made on health care. The former DNC chair reached out to the Huffington Post to correct the record.

“I said I was going to vote for him and that I support him vigorously,” Dean said. “It wasn’t your fault, Joe heard me wrong. When I looked back and looked at it I can see what happened. But I said I was going to support him and I am.”

The footage from the show does clearly show Dean uttering the word “not” before “vigorously.” But there is enough of a pause in there to suggest that he had been trying to start a different train of thought before changing course. And Dean’s reaction to Scarborough’s confetti line suggests he wasn’t entirely sure what the laughter was all about.

So my apologies, Gov. Dean. You didn’t say anything stupid.

But for all of you who pooh-poohed me when I thought it was disastrous politics and really bad form for the former chair of the DNC to be trashing his own President, you know who obviously agrees with me? Howard Dean, who reached out to correct the record because it would have been terrible to have that out there.

The people from the “wedge issue” and “outrage of the day” department of misinformation will be sorely disappointed they can't use Dean's remarks to show PBO’s rapid decline in support. Using noise from the vocal disappointed left on the web to indicate slippage in PBO's base was thin. However, having Dean and an actual active grassroots base would have been meatier.

True, I'm not “rich” to that degree, but the rhetoric shifts to your own purpose does it not? I am rich in that I oppress my employees by making them take the coverage I choose, paying them only what they earn, and will close the business before allowing it to be unionized. And yet, our insurance bill is more than our yearly profit. This is about insurance right?

Problem is, most sensible folks are for controlling costs and providing access (even to immigrant IMHO). That's not what Liberal Progressives are trying to do, if they were this could be much more simple. I've read most of both bills and researched many of the details. There is very little that will help control costs, other than the “cuts” to Medicare. I'm all for letting all those who want it to suckle the gubment teat. I'll help pay for it too, if there is a real plan. What we have so far is a big money grab. No real reform, no idea on actual coverage, just the IRS collecting money.

Hiya, PT!

Season's greetings to you.

Season's greetings to you as well!

For awhile there, I thought you had given up your spot on the team of non-believers here. (:~)

No more than the right wing ones. We all have to be careful when we use words like corporations. they are not monolithic. they compete against one another