To listen to the Glen Becks/Sally Pipes/Charles Krauthammers/Neil Cavutos you’d think President Obama and the Democratic Congress is 100% full-bore absolutely committed to a health system run by the Feds where all docs are Federal employees and hospitals are owned by the gub’mint.
They are nothing if not consistent in decrying ‘socialized medicine’, unfortunately they have no idea what they’re talking about. Nowhere in President Obama’s history – not in any position papers, speeches, responses to questions, or writings – is there any credible evidence of any support for a socialized health system (one where the payers and providers are government workers).
Nowhere.
This isn’t a “you say po-tay-toe, I say po-tah-toe” thing. We are not splitting hairs arguing about policy niceties or nuance, this is a flat out complete distortion of the Democratic reform platform. It is an active, aggressive, coordinated, consistent effort on the part of these wingnuts to distort the Democrats’ position and scare Americans. These right wing talking heads are not idiots, and they can read; clearly they know they’re lying.
Why?
Simple – the real Obama/Democratic health reform plans aren’t scary big government takeovers of health care; they leverage the existing private insurance industry – and don’t even assure universal coverage.
In fact, the voters might actually like the Obama plan. What’s unfortunate is by lying about the Dems’ reform initiatives, these folks have lost all credibility. They could contribute to the discussion, instead they’re standing on the side lines screaming.
What does this mean for you?
If the D’s plans were that bad, the wingnuts wouldn’t need to lie about them.
May
4
This “lying” is not surprising. They have been doing it for eight years. I always thought that the private health insurance industry was suppose to do the job cheaper than a government policy. Well, we all know what happened with medicare and the medicare advantage plans. Maybe, we should have kept the medicare choice + plans from 1996. I believe that they were suppose to pay out 95% to 98% on the dollar. From what I have seen, I don’t trust any of the private insurance programs.
Sparten, while I’m with you, the true history of Medicare+Choice is that in its early years, it too overpaid the insurers, just as Medicare Advantage has since its inception with the MMA of 2003. The difference is that under the Balanced Budget Act of 1999, the government started sunsetting the overpayments, or, more accurately, just not granting any further increases, with the goal of bringing the reimbursement for insurers back to at least parity with Part A and B, if not the 95-98 percent that by all rights it should have been if the managed care industry were serious about its ability to deliver value.
In short, the business model didn’t work without the overpayments. Many insurers began bailing out of Medicare+Choice after the BBA. What was left by 2003 were a few mission-driven insurers running plans on little to no margin, or big insurers with deep pockets willing to settle for same, or plans operating only in concentrated markets where the promised value could still be delivered. And, I’m told, there were only two types of customers left in Medicare+Choice: poor, urban folks, and retirees of large, industrial companies that bought the benefit for its workers on a group basis in lieu of supplemental plans.
I’m not convinced, after years of looking at it, that most managed care companies can deliver better service and/or benefits and/or network management than original Medicare at a price at parity with original Medicare, let alone 95-98 percent. They need significant risk-adjustment overpayments for the sickest patients, which must come from CMS. At that point, you have to ask, why not just have CMS do the whole thing, since they already have to do the hardest part, the risk-adjustment?