tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7251132931158512410..comments2024-03-28T15:48:48.514-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Health Care. Again... Insure the kids first!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79472914604159358572009-12-25T18:33:32.647-08:002009-12-25T18:33:32.647-08:00What do you mean, "Democrats had never though...What do you mean, "Democrats had never thought of insuring kids first?" Ted Kennedy proposed that a while ago: http://www.gregpalast.com/the-s-word-and-dr-kevorkians-accountant/#more-2946Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12262110038797684437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77053047484031162942009-12-23T07:18:52.760-08:002009-12-23T07:18:52.760-08:00The current bill should be considered a "Firs...The current bill should be considered a "First pancake" (Pre-teflon), not that good, but a harbinger of tastier things on the way.Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86239325593913586842009-12-23T07:07:10.027-08:002009-12-23T07:07:10.027-08:00Jester, I don't agree with the mandates, and I...Jester, I don't agree with the mandates, and I definitely know of the situations you're talking about because I'm in that now (I need new glasses and some dental work, but can't afford to right now because I just don't have the extra money for the deductibles and co-pay).<br /><br />That said, I'm still hoping the bill passes, because despite it's flaws, if it does pass then it is a step forward, a step town the road to reform, and if it doesn't pass, the GOP will drag it through the campaign trail and take it on another decade+ detour. <br /><br />The bill is imperfect, and there are plenty of flaws that will need to be fixed and revised, but we should never have gone into this expecting a perfect bill. Sure, we could have hoped for, and could have had a better one, but we could have had no bill at all and the political death of any hope for reform for the next decade, as well. What we got is somewhere in between. It's not what we want, not yet, and it will probably exacerbate some existing problems and create new problems of it's own, but it IS something that we can work with, something that it looks like we may just well have. The final bill that is reconciled between both houses of Congress may be better or worse than either of the independent bills, but even if it is worse, it is still something that we can work with, a platform for reform from which to start. More importantly, it will carry the momentum of reform. If the bill is killed now, then we probably won't see another one until after the next election, at least, if not longer. <br /><br />Personally, I think it is better to have an imperfect bill, that at the very least sets us down the path of addressing and fixing our problems, than to not have any bill at all, and have our hopes for reform pushed back another year, or four, or ten or more.<br /><br />And, besides, this is democracy. Rigid, clean perfection isn't what we do. What we do is messy, imperfect, often slow, and rough to start, but ultimately, over the long run, it usually (not always, but usually) tends to work out much better, with much more success. It's a rough-and-tumble process, frustrating and aggravating, that often makes you want to rip your hair or horns out (as applicable <br />} ; = 8 ) ), but that is better than any other process we've tried before, as Dr. Brin has reiterated time and again.Ilithi Dragonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10300247936272572280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66371778926268806412009-12-22T23:45:36.674-08:002009-12-22T23:45:36.674-08:00Russ Dagget is a wealthy idiot.
There is no effor...Russ Dagget is a wealthy idiot.<br /><br />There is no effort underway to reform health care. Only to reform Insurance. They're not the same thing.<br /><br />Anyone who has ever been well enough off not to qualify for public assistance, but too poor to even think about buying a car with less than 100,000 on the odometer would understand that the uninsured don't share Daggets goals.<br /><br />Most of us know what it is to live check to check with junk insurance...and avoid getting that mole checked out because of the deductible.<br /><br />We know what it is to choose between a co-pay on a chest x-ray and a birthday present for our kid.<br /><br />Russ? This idiot think "insurance coverage" and Access to Health Care are synonymous.<br /><br />The junk 'bronze plan' with 40% co-pays the Senate is pushing is literally worse than nothing. A single person at 300% of FPL could be required to shell out 3,400 a year and would still face 40% co-pays. <br /><br />In any urban area outside of the rust belt, those kind of numbers mean losing an apartment or getting the heat turned off. <br /><br />I guess we can solve that problem, though, by mandating people by homes. <br /><br />Oh, that analogy isn't mine. It belongs to some skinny big-eared guy to whose election campaign I devoted hundreds of hours and more money than I had. <br /><a href= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/<br />2009/12/20/obama-health-care-mandates_n_398380.htmlJesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66452615138706184682009-12-22T23:20:00.817-08:002009-12-22T23:20:00.817-08:00Dr Brin -
We already have covered virtually all t...Dr Brin -<br /><br />We already have covered virtually all the uncovered children.<br /><br />Between medicaid and SCHIP, nearly all children who aren't covered by their parents employer are covered by uncle sam.<br /><br />This "ominbus bill" approach has always been a mistake. It is now under Obama, it was 16 year ago under Clinton.<br /><br />They ought to just open up the Medicare buy-in for 55-65 and open up Medicaid to everyone below FPL, including those who are 21-65 and not officially disabled.Jesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53874571675355532682009-12-22T17:32:35.427-08:002009-12-22T17:32:35.427-08:00I recommend Russ Daggatt's latest:
http://dagg...I recommend Russ Daggatt's latest:<br />http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2009/12/health-care-costs.html<br /><br />Here's an excerpt:<br /> <b><br />"As we seem to be approaching the end game for the current effort at health care reform in Congress, it is worth reviewing what the debate is all about. As I outlined in a blog post back in August (“common ground on health care”) the basic objectives of reform are two-fold: 1/ expand coverage to more of the 45 million or so Americans who currently lack health care coverage and 2/ control costs in the system (if you can call our current mess a “system”). <br /><br /> I quoted Paul Krugman’s good short summary of the basic elements of the approach being taken in Congress (“Health reform made simple”):</b><i><br /> <br />The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance.<br /><br />Everything else is about making that core work. Individual mandates are a way to prevent gaming of the system by people who don’t sign up until they’re sick; employer mandates a way to hold down the on-budget costs by preventing a rush by employers to drop insurance; the public option a way to create effective competition and hold costs down further.<br /><br />But what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums.<br /> <br />That’s it. Any commentator who whines that he just doesn’t understand it is basically saying that he doesn’t want to understand it."</i>David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36899700810072292392009-12-21T20:33:40.300-08:002009-12-21T20:33:40.300-08:00@Stefan Jones
"... there's the problem o...@Stefan Jones <br /><i>"... there's the problem of unhealthy habits that the current system does little to discourage. .."</i><br /><br />Indeed, the current system has positive incentives to avoid dealing with some unhealthy habits. <br /><br />If your current insurer can put off dealing with something long enough, you'll be out of the system entirely and Medicare's problem. Why would an economically rational insurer sink $X into you today to prevent a problem costings $Y is 10 years ... when that $Y will come out of someone else's pocket?<br /><br />Now, there may be some marketing advantages to providing some of the more obvious forms of preventative medicine; smoking cessation comes to mind. These may be popular because many smokers really do want to quit their addiction, so the marketing advantages may outweigh the costs of relatively inexpensive antismoking programs. Alcoholism and drug addiction OTOH may have less marketing value (...who wants to admit they have an alky working for them?????) so "the system" may calculate that, although they will be far more expensive to treat later than earlier, insurers may rationally choose not to provide earlier, more effective and less expensive intervention... since by the time the need for treatment is acute, the patient has a different insurer entirely ... or perhaps no insurer at all.<br /><br />By "rational" I am of course speaking of "economic rationality" as taught in ECON 101, not any sort of actual human value.rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69662948887561752212009-12-21T11:53:49.783-08:002009-12-21T11:53:49.783-08:00I heard "noughts" on NPR. Good contracti...I heard "noughts" on NPR. Good contraction for both noughty oughts or noughties.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />If you want a brain-whomp film, try "A Serious Man."<br /><br />Kind of like the "Book of Job" meets Schroedinger's Cat.<br /><br />Some rather painful humor at the expense of the poor shlub of the title.Stefan Joneshttp://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/kira_squirrel_lo.JPGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58235760192783919822009-12-21T10:40:02.600-08:002009-12-21T10:40:02.600-08:00Amazing... I never get any cred for the suggestion...Amazing... I never get any cred for the suggestions I make, that are ignored for years, then suddenly "discovered." I started calling the decade the "noughty oughts" back in 2002!<br /><br />In fairness, a guy on SLATE found that someone in the 1910s gave that name to the 1900s.<br /><br />We're plowing our way through Inglorious Basterds...one of the most tedious, boring, SLOW and dumb films I have ever seen.<br /><br />Tarantino used to channel Segio Lenoe, inspired by the great spaghetti western director to deliver great confrontation scenes between good and evil... now he's like some kind of shambling ZOMBIE version of Leone. Forgetting for ten minutes at a stretch to do anything but go "u.u.u.u.h"<br /><br />Perhaps the second half will be better... if we can drag ourselves back to the dvd player.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86896664807525022112009-12-21T10:00:14.119-08:002009-12-21T10:00:14.119-08:00I wasn't going to mention it, but as long as w...I wasn't going to mention it, but as long as we're off topic: the BBC seems to have accepted the noughties. It's not quite what Brin suggested but its close. I've seen it used in several articals and this talking point http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A60728952.beowulfSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82984645286675851732009-12-21T06:01:54.211-08:002009-12-21T06:01:54.211-08:00Utterly Out Of Topic (re: Uplift), but just a stra...Utterly Out Of Topic (re: Uplift), but just a strange coincidence...<br />the Streaker's fin physician is called Makanee, and the name triggered something (memory is an odd thing)..- Ma-kanee is also the name of one of the two moons of Teff-Hell, the planet of the bad guys in Campbell's The Mightiest Machine. In-joke or subconscious echo?Marinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51549780457854409552009-12-20T19:07:16.889-08:002009-12-20T19:07:16.889-08:00Saw Avatar in 3D IMAX today, and very much enjoyed...Saw Avatar in 3D IMAX today, and very much enjoyed the show. 3D IMAX was just awesome, of course, and the movie delivered on the special effects, as expected. The story was also surprisingly good - it's basically Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves injected with 10 million CCs of Michael Bay, but it actually turned out pretty well. 11 out of 10 for VFX (they're really that good, and of course the IMAX experience makes a difference - see it in IMAX 3D if you get the chance, it's definitely worth it), and an 8 out of 10 for the story. Some of the stuff that happens to the secondary characters is pretty predictable by the end, but I was guessing the whole way through about how everything would ultimately turn out. There are some rough spots, and the "evil, money-grubbing corporation from the environmentally-devastated Earth" cliche is, well, rather cliche, but overall I found the story rather good and enjoyable, jokes about Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves aside. Characters get a 9 out of 10, and dialogue a 9 out of 10. I give them an 8 out of 10 for science stuff - most of the tech and science they employed wasn't stretched that far beyond what we have now. Now, it's Hollywood, so it wasn't perfect, but most of the issues I saw were largely a matter of engineering and practicality/effectiveness, with few "that doesn't/can't work that way!" (and they neatly avoided explaining how almost everything actually worked). The biology stuff with the native fauna might be iffy, but I don't know enough in that field to say. The Unobtanium was also rather amusing.<br /><br />Anyway, I personally enjoyed it very much, and think it's a very good movie. It's also VERY much worth it to see it in IMAX or 3D IMAX if you can. The movie was made for it.Ilithi Dragonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10300247936272572280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4388814150274810502009-12-20T16:48:41.019-08:002009-12-20T16:48:41.019-08:00@Ian: There was a great PBS (public television) do...@Ian: There was a great PBS (public television) documentary that surveyed health care programs around the world.<br /><br />Germany's system sounded like a quite acceptable model to shoot for.Stefan Joneshttp://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/kira_grinning_lo.JPGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91609562930406269282009-12-20T14:37:19.392-08:002009-12-20T14:37:19.392-08:00As to the goodreads.com remark: I did pop over &am...As to the goodreads.com remark: I did pop over & noticed you're currently reading The Moral Animal. Do let us know what you think, yes?Emilynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19480085559765909672009-12-20T12:50:59.715-08:002009-12-20T12:50:59.715-08:00Except that the private insurers of the USA presen...Except that the private insurers of the USA presently seem to see little or no value in enduring the oversight/enforcement mechanisms that such a scheme as Deutschland/Germany likely has in place.Dwight Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14389833479219422837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53315251009065193762009-12-20T09:25:29.898-08:002009-12-20T09:25:29.898-08:00Living in Australia, I'm very strongly in favo...Living in Australia, I'm very strongly in favor of single-payer government-run health insurance.<br /><br />However, I will point out that there are a number of countries that have universal healthcare based on private health insurance with government subsidies for the premiums of the poor - Germany is an example.<br /><br />The American debate on this issue has seemingly become polarised between opponents and supporters of single payer.<br /><br />I'd just point out that Germany shows it is <b>possible</b> for a system based on private for-profit insurance funds to deliver the key goals of the American reforms - cost containment and universal coverage.Ian Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07666385933765478081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14563864232483243092009-12-19T21:41:38.627-08:002009-12-19T21:41:38.627-08:00I agree about health care reform and health insura...I agree about health care reform and health insurance reform.<br /><br />The system we have isn't <i>deeply</i> dysfunctional, but it is far from perfect, and its problems -- cost and poor outcomes -- will continue to get worse and worse.<br /><br />Then there's the problem of unhealthy <i>habits</i> that the current system does little to discourage. <br /><br />And the current system seems toothless when it comes to dealing with environmental problems.Stefan Joneshttp://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/kira_grinning_lo.JPGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38128018737158157362009-12-19T11:30:27.738-08:002009-12-19T11:30:27.738-08:00ALSO!
HEALTH INSURANCE != HEALTH CARE
That we ar...ALSO!<br /><br />HEALTH INSURANCE != HEALTH CARE<br /><br />That we are talking "insurance reform" is absurd. It does not substantively relate to health care on its own. See the first paragraph in the previous post.<br /><br />Will passing INSURANCE reform help? Maybe a little. But it will not bring us much closer to having a healthier, stronger population until we drop the insurance debate (yes, putting the three or so mega- insurance companies on the rail. Don't worry: they're smaller than the banks we had to bail out) and focus on actually getting health care to people.<br /><br />It is being done around the world at a fraction of the cost we spend for our broken "system"Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02666322271295812172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21705061224878514052009-12-19T11:24:49.506-08:002009-12-19T11:24:49.506-08:00Well over half of bankruptcies in the US are from ...Well over half of bankruptcies in the US are from healthcare issues. 70% of those bankruptcies occurred from insured folk. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgqqSHr0wVA" rel="nofollow">Al Franken had a very nice STFU response when pushed on this point:</a><br /><br />We need to push public Health Care (as does just about every other developed nation) as a matter of National Security and preserving our economy as well as being the right thing to do.<br /><br />Yeah, insure the kids first. It is a great idea.<br /><br />However...<br />When I ran for office in HI this was a big part of my campaign. It's hugely unpopular politically since Pharma and insurance industry heavily finances BOTH SIDES of political contests. Both the Dems and Repubs are totally beholden at the federal level. It is easy to see on this issue - more so than others that seem more "divisive" .Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02666322271295812172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89744469921245578472009-12-19T07:13:23.210-08:002009-12-19T07:13:23.210-08:00Timothy: I'm not sure about that. Yeah, kids ...Timothy: I'm not sure about that. Yeah, kids are durable and all, but lack of health care and more nutrition as a kid can have life-long negative consequences. So can nutrition, which is an easier fix, but not a direct part of the current discussion.<br /><br />As for the current bill, I'm split. If you look at it as a complete health insurance overhaul, which it was supposed to be, well, it's crap. It's, at best, an incremental improvement, which requires everybody to buy for-profit insurance, and doesn't regulate them heavily enough OR expose them to more competition, so that's a fail.<br /><br />On the other hand, it DOES have subsidies to help pay for these, though funneling subsidies to for-profit companies is not such a great idea. And it would be a small step toward establishing health care as something that everyone should have, not as something only for the rich. Plus, if this bill dies, there will be no "come back next month", or any kind of "serious bipartisan commission", the "serious bipartisan commission" that Max Baucus ran kept out any real liberals, and involved a bunch of Republicans who publicly said, while still in discussions, that they wouldn't support anything that came out of it.<br /><br />So if this reform effort dies, the lesson won't be "this bill turned into crap because the Very Serious Moderates made it something nobody could support", the "message" the media will give, and the politicians will take, is "OMG HEALTH CARE IS UNTOUCHABLE DON'T DO ANYTHING, AMERICA HAS THE BESTEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD EVAR!!!!eleven" which is total crap, and would lead to lots of extra suffering over the next ten-fifteen years as the current shitty status quo falls apart even more until enough people are pissed for politicians to try something again. Probably something crappier, unfortunately. And it would justify the Republican's Party of No status, even further demoralize the Democratic base, and give the whack-job Republicans a victory going into the next elections, which would be Very Bad for the country.<br /><br />But passing it increases the power of the Very Serious Moderates, especially King Joe, makes the actual liberals who fought for this for years look weak since they gave up almost everything, and gives the Republicans a crappy bill to campaign against.<br /><br />So do I support the current bill? ...Probably. Not happily at all, as I said, it's crap, but it's better than the current status quo, which is unbelievably crappy, which I know from personal experience.<br /><br />Which is the trap we liberals are in on this bill. We have actual moral reasons to pass a bill, and the status quo really is that bad for people who aren't professionals or politicians. The Republicans have no desire to fix it, or ideas to, they'd rather try and stick it to Democrats. And enough Democrats are addicted to being Very Serious Moderates (or petty @$!holes) that they will happily make the bill worse and worse to burnish their Moderate credentials or stick it to hippies, or whatever. The hundreds of thousands of people without health insurance, or with health insurance that vaporizes when they don't need it don't matter to them.<br /><br />So we're negotiating with people who argue in bad faith and don't care about the results of their actions. So yeah. Does the good in this bill outweigh the bad? Right now, probably. If only barely. I expect Ben Nelson and King Joe to continue to try and hack at it until they don't, though.Natenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49732610991929810722009-12-19T03:44:42.052-08:002009-12-19T03:44:42.052-08:00The problem is that children as a group are the he...The problem is that children as a group are the healthiest people out there (at least once you get past the one year or so point). This is of course a product of good nutrition and antibiotics, and other tools of modern medical care, but as a population they have an extremely low death rate.<br /><br />I'm far more concerned with the hacking off of the forty years of remaining life from a meaningful fraction of the population of people in their forties, than I am of less than 1 in 10,000 additional kids losing their 70 years. And anyways there always will be more donations to children's health care. So basically the reason we shouldn't be focusing on kids is because they just don't matter that much in the context of people who actually need health care and aren't getting it.<br /><br />Also most of the states also already have programs for covering children. They already are much better covered, again because of our socialism for kids is okay attitude.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04677779596922652873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-5039311635272295942009-12-18T22:44:28.982-08:002009-12-18T22:44:28.982-08:00Fried just saw Avatar:
"I kept thinking the ...Fried just saw Avatar:<br /><br />"<i>I kept thinking the trees came from Garth, the flyers from Pern,<br />and the unification attack from Deathworld.<br /> <br />Never mind Dances with Wolves and The Word for the World is Forest.<br /> <br />A fair enough movie, but again I think little will be remembered of it as<br />disposable excellence defines the mundane epic."</i>David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51707583266752319452009-12-18T18:59:08.547-08:002009-12-18T18:59:08.547-08:00You do realize, the democrats only look responsibl...You do realize, the democrats only look responsible in contrast to what the GOP has allowed theirselves to become. Trying to out-Reagan Reagan. Expletive.Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19561719445932734882009-12-18T18:51:31.537-08:002009-12-18T18:51:31.537-08:00Tacitus2 said:
The problems at hand are:
1. entre...Tacitus2 said:<br /><i><br />The problems at hand are:<br />1. entrenched and enriched interests. Pharma, AMA, Trial Lawyers. All with money to hand out lavishly.<br />2. Extraordinary unrealistic expectations on what the health care system can/should/must do. (they blur together rather rapidly).<br />3. a craven political class.<br /></i><br /><br />You forgot one more that overshadows everything else.<br /><br />4. "Corporate personhood".<br /><br />As long as the Supreme Court perversely considers corporations to be "persons" with constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and privacy rights, then the rest of us have no hope competing in the political arena with entites that can treat billions as "throwing around money".LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33890874361382617542009-12-18T16:15:02.744-08:002009-12-18T16:15:02.744-08:00http://dailyme.com/story/2009121700002033/stephen-...http://dailyme.com/story/2009121700002033/stephen-king-meets-estate-tax.html#David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.com