Jan 21 2010
We Listened, We Rejected – Now You Listen
I find it positive that a lot of Democrats reacted with shock and a touch of ‘what are we doing?’ in response to the results in Massachusetts. But in general I can see the Dems are going to put the pedal to the metal and drive over the cliff because they still don’t get the gist of what America has said in three statewide elections.
Prime example is Sen Feinstein:
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, for one, said the election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts shows the fundamental political landscape has shifted and Democrats across the country have to take note, focusing on how to create jobs and keep people in their homes instead of trying to explain the need for sweeping social programs.
…
“You see anger. People are worried. And when they’re worried they don’t want to take on a broad new responsibility,†like health care reform, she said.
…
“I think we do go slower n health care. People do not understand it. it is so big it is beyond their comprehension. And if you don’t understand it when somebody tells you it does this or it does that and It’s not true, you tend to believe it, even though it isn’t true. It’s hard to debunk all of the myths that are out there.â€
She was doing so well, up until the end. You see this ‘the people can’t see how good this will all be’ is a response to the fact we all know the liberal tooth fairy doesn’t exist. We heard this same silliness on the stimulus bill.
The libs  claimed we didn’t need the tried and true, across the board, tax cuts to create jobs (i.e., John Kennedy was wrong, even though we all know he was right). They claimed we have the government to spread the wealth, which instead wasted our money on their rich friends and was so sluggish about spending the mid term elections will be here before things kick in (if even then).
We have heard the government run liberal fantasies. We reject them. We heard and understood. We know better. Now you listen DC!
You can pass some small health care solutions, ones there are broad agreement on. The Reps and Indies have to go along or else that wave of anger that is still building after it hit NJ, VA and MA will be coming for them. Here are some things possible to negotiate:
- We support tort reform, like that proposed under Bush were (a) losers pay court costs for both sides and (b) there is a special medical claims court to filter out bogus suits and (c) there are payment limits on certain classes of suites.
- We support insurance pooling for small businesses and individuals. I proposed before just allowing the groups under 50 or so to access the government options provided civil servants. This would promote small business success and growth.
- We support breaking the state barriers to buying health care – open this up nationally, now.
- We support restrictions on dumping patients when covered. If some need assistance for periods then so be it, but no dumping them off coverage.
- No denial for pre-existing conditions. Deal with this through premium prices, but allow people coverage.
It is not that hard to find some reasonable changes which will have huge impacts and cost us very little. We don’t want what DC is selling. We are not a liberal loving nation. We tolerate them as we do anyone and everyone. But that is a far cry from adulation and following them. No more liberal arrogance!
If DC Dems are unwilling to use this lucky lesson well, then they deserve twice the heat in November. They were, in a sadly ironic way, given a huge gift by the passing of Ted Kennedy. If they had not been forced into this special election in MA, then they would still be blissfully ignorant of their pending demise.
Don’t go all Howard Dean on us (re Chris Mathews’ Show last night) and pretend everyone voted against the liberal and for the republican because they wanted more liberalism. We’ll kick you out just for being crazy.
During the election, I registered with the Obama people just to mess around with them. Let me quote an email I received from his Organizing for America (OFA):
“Yesterday’s disappointing election results show deep discontent with the pace of change. I know the OFA community and the President share that frustration. …
Our health care system still needs reform. Wall Street still needs to be held accountable. We still need to create good jobs. And we still need to continue building a clean energy economy.
The President isn’t walking away from these challenges. In fact, his determination and resolve are only stronger. We must match that commitment with our own.”
Allow me to sum it up: they don’t care about what the people want. They only care about what THEY want to do. They want to wreck the health care system. This is the “change” they want, and they won’t stop for anything to accomplish it. And, the fact Obama loses a senate seat in Massachusetts of all places makes him even more determined to drive his party off a cliff.
Yes, I’ve been wondering if this business about allowing insurers to operate across state lines isn’t clutching at straws. The most inexpensive mechanism for providing coverage is, as I understand it, the HMO. I don’t see how an insurer can go into a new state and create a provider network without a large, existing client base.
The often unspoken premise behind “increasing competition” is that insurer profits are so enormous that increased competition will bring rates down. There are a lot of cut-and-paste set pieces out there that purport to demonstrate precisely that. I do not believe such claims survive close examination.
Both Medicare and Medicare present the problems of grossly inadequate provider reimbursement and provider “overutilization.” The ethical providers are withdrawing from this area of practice, and the unethical are bleeding us white.
Say an insurer lives in NYC and buys an policy in Texas for a fraction of the cost of a NYC policy. The insurer gets sick. He’s not going to Texas for treatment. He will get treatment in his city. The cost comparison of care between Texas and NYC are not even in the same league. If the Texas company has to pay the NYC prices they would soon go out of business. Their premiums are based on the costs in Texas. I can guarantee that no company would even talk about this type of across state insurance.
Yes, and another reason rates vary so much from state to state is because of state “mandates.” Do-gooders at the state level require that health insurance policies must provide for certain, and frequently very expensive, benefits–like in vitro fertilization and obesity therapy. The “basics” required in HR 3200, as I recall, include treatment for “substance use disorder.”
Allahpundit is reporting that Congressional Democrats are going for reconciliation to get healthcare legislation passed.
See:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/21/paul-ryan-tells-nro-the-dems-are-going-to-try-reconciliation/
I agree with you for the most part.
But the non-denial for pre-existing conditions is a very tricky animal. Lets say I refuse to buy insurance and then discover that I have intestinal cancer. Well I go to a company and “they must take me” I have never payed a dime into the system and now I want thousands of dollars from it.
The folks that have dutifully payed will foot the bill, driving up cost.
Thats not insurance! Why even buy insurance?
Pre-existing is tough. It requires more than ‘insurance’ and more of a loan program or Medicaid support. But it can be done.
Oneal Lane
I know what you mean
Over the years I had many employees who contracted some disease and wanted on the plan. They had refused to join before even though the company paid 3/4 of individual and 2/3 of the family plans but want on it when catastrophe strikes. They never got it that this is insurance in case you do get ill. They would get very angry with me when I said they couldn’t join until January and even then their problem wouldn’t be covered until after 255 days. They told me I could bend the rules if I wanted to. Yeah, I could lie and get them on and maybe lose insurance for all the rest of the employees who had been paying for years. It wouldn’t have done any good to put them on anyway. The insurance company investigates to see if it was pre-existing and if it is they won’t pay.
Such employees, though, usually lead the afternoon discussion about where to meet up at happy hour.
Perhaps if ther was some incentive for people to have catastrophic coverage, let’s say with a 10,000 to 20,000 deductable and then health cave savings accounts to cover cost under that. Something most people who want could afford. And for those slackers who just refuse to buy…………It all comes down to this. Either you buy insurance or you don’t get a free ride. Sorry bub, you made your choice, its your death bed now you lay in it.
You’ve hit on it, O’neal – you can make coverage available but you cannot make it universal, and people who wait to be insured have got to be denied in order for the system to work.
Yes, people will go untreated and die because of this policy. That hard fact has to be faced and accepted as a reality.
The Left which has been pushing “reform” so hard is not yet willing to accept this, which is what makes the problem so difficult to crack.
I never heard of any insurance company offering catastrophic coverage as a group. I doubt that most employees would want it. They griped enough about the $200.00 deductible they had to pay to enter the hospital. They sure would gripe if they had to pay $10,000.00. As I said the company paid 3/4 of individual policies. At that time that policy was $418.00 per month with a $20 co-pay for doctors and drugs, so the employee had to pay a little over $100.00 per month or 24 payments of about $50.00 for the policy. Was that not a deal? Of course, this was a nursing home and the pay scale was not great but there were some employees who were working just for the insurance. As soon as they could get on Medicare, they quit.
Besides, catastrophic coverage even with $10,000.00 deductible would still not solve the problem of pre-existing conditions. A cancer patient can run up bills that far exceed that and insurance companies would still refuse to cover it. It would not be fair or good business to force them to do so.
This evening I read the comments section here, where a gathering of “progressives is trying to figure out what went wrong in MA:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/21/is-progressive-messaging-a-%e2%80%9cmassive-botch%e2%80%9d-drew-westen/
I’m always trying to figure out the logic of the “other side.” But I can’t figure it out.
They are uniform in one thing – fear of imminent catastrophe. And their own government is promoting this.
When you try to ram it to the people, be prepared to reenact the “shower scene†from a bad prison movie and remember those immortal words … “Don’t drop the soap”
You can read much the same sort of partisan claptrap on The Health Care Blog. Looks like they’re cracking down on dissent. Their echo chambers must be hermetically sealed.
Their “logic,” as it seems to me, is to create a fantasy world in which they can preen themselves on being an elite, surrounded by hordes of the morally defective. Just a form of collective self-stimulation, really.
These are the ideological offspring of the types who fawned over “Uncle Joe.” They have always been with us.
File this under the header of “Restoring America’s ‘good name'”
[…] win in MA early this year I have stated the Dems would pay a huge price for Obamacare. This is what I said right after Brown’s win: We have heard the government run liberal fantasies. We reject them. We heard and understood. We […]