As the AMA endorsed the House version of Obama care, which as I pointed out yesterday, would spell the death knell for private health insurance (did the endorsers have time to read the 1000 + page bill?) and institute a utilitarian oversight rationing board over all of our health care–except for members of Congress, of course–the head of the Congressional Budget Office has issued a warning about the cost of this debacle. From the story:
Further doubts about the high cost of Obama’s effort emerged on Thursday when Congress’ own independent budget analyst said reforms now being considered would do little to control rising costs. Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats seized on this, and called for more controls on the scale and cost of the plan. Congressional Budget Office chief Douglas Elmendorf told the committee its legislation would expand federal spending on healthcare “to a significant degree” while doing little to trim costs.
This further illustrates the need to for Congress to be deliberate, rather than acting like stampeding cattle. This isn’t a matter, as the President so often likes to say, between doing nothing or his reform. Changes need to be made. But the health care system remains basically sound, and to use the old cliche`, the current proposals would throw the baby out with the bathwater and bankrupt the country (in connection with other reckless spending beyond our scope here) at the same time.
July 17th, 2009 | 1:46 pm
We’re talking about extending coverage to millions of people that have no coverage at all. Of course it’s going to cost more than NOT insuring them. I don’t see where anyone’s trying to keep that secret. But keeping the additional cost to a minimum is necessary, and it involves bucking the insurance lobby, so Obama’s aiming high here.
It amazes me that some of the people that are shocked that public health coverage will cost money are the same people that believed Bush/Cheney et al. that the Iraq war would pay for itself. How’s that worked out so far?
July 17th, 2009 | 2:12 pm
They do all they can to prevent abortions, but once the baby is out of the womb, see ya! Your on your own. But its what Jesus would want, “Blessed be the insurance companies” I think is what he said.
July 17th, 2009 | 5:31 pm
[...] bankrupt,” according to Vice President Joe Biden. How cares that the CBO is saying that if we pass this healthcare bill we’ll go bankrupt. Sphere: Related [...]
July 17th, 2009 | 7:07 pm
Mike, if I had a dollar for every time someone said that…I hope you return so you can see how grossly unfair it is. My fellow churchgoers just donated some $1,200 to the local Birthright. Have you ever heard of Birthright? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
July 17th, 2009 | 10:56 pm
Goyl, what Birthright does is very admirable. However, do the unwed mothers you help have sufficient prenatal care? Who’s paying their childbirth medical costs? And what happens if they have a high-risk pregnancy?
I appreciate the generosity of your church, but it’s going to take a lot more than $1,200 to help these women out.
This is what I don’t get about this pro-life blog’s opposition to expanding health care coverage. Are you only pro-life until you have to help pay for them?
July 18th, 2009 | 2:27 pm
Oh please, padraig.
Nearly every pregnant women could qualify for coverage of her medical costs under existing programs. Medicaid for pregnant women covers women who are above the cut off for traditional medicaid, and SCHIP covers women with even greater means.
The process is complicated and frustrating, but putting more government into the mix wont solve that problem.
Crisis pregnancy centers help women navigate the Human Services maze. We help women every day and don’t charge them a thing. Please stop with the bumper sticker talking points.
July 18th, 2009 | 8:24 pm
Crisis pregnancy centers’ primary mission is to prevent people from having abortions, not to support them and their offspring. I really wish people would get that straight. The “help” is secondary.
July 18th, 2009 | 9:20 pm
Yeah Lauren, I see bumper stickers all over about prenatal care and high-risk pregnancies…
I can see where at the very least impoverished pregnant women could get help — for most folks like that their medical coverage consists of the local emergency room, which by law can’t turn them away.
I decided to check the facts on this at the federal level at http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/uninsured-cps/index.htm (Please bear in mind that this report was compiled during the previous administration.)
It doesn’t show single mother rates, but here’s a key phrase:
“The vast majority of the uninsured are working individuals or the children of those who work.”
We are the only remotely prosperous country that does not ensure basic health care for our children. Put that on a bumper sticker if you like.
July 18th, 2009 | 10:27 pm
This is what I don’t get about this pro-life blog’s opposition to expanding health care coverage. Are you only pro-life until you have to help pay for them?
Mr. Smith’s general opposition to government health care appears to be rooted in fear of the increased power over our lives that nationalized health care will give government, and the conviction that current trends in ‘bioethics’ and attempts to reduce medical cost will result in cutting off coverage or worse for ‘useless eaters’ and ‘life unworthy of life.’
July 18th, 2009 | 11:13 pm
M.L. Martin: Thanks for showing up.
I worry about that, but I also don’t think government health care will work as well as a mix of private/public. I once was for single payer, and then I saw the mess in Canada, in the UK, and elsewhere.
We need price competition. We need a national insurance market. We need the legal system robust to keep insurance companies honest. We need ways for those who can’t afford private insurance to be able to, whether tax credits, vouchers, etc. We need competition.
We also need to cut other areas of government if we are going to fund health care. But we want it all and it will fall into the ocean like California is doing.
Thanks.
July 19th, 2009 | 12:08 am
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t! — it’s a wonder anyone tries at all with such supportive encouragement. In any case, my point was not to make myself look like Mother Teresa; it was only one example in objection to a simple-minded accusation.
padraig, why is it hard to understand that someone would be glad to help others, but not trust an overgrown bureaucracy to manage their charity for them?
HistoryWriter, for the record, here is a link to their list of services. You can see that it does indeed look farther ahead than the delivery room (an old adage about teaching a man to fish springs to mind). You could claim that they aren’t equally concerned about the wellbeing of the parent(s), but that would be pure speculation.
http://www.birthright.org/htmpages/services.htm
July 19th, 2009 | 3:39 am
No I have no idea what birthright is, but what does it have to do with for profit heath care? Ever heard of 1.3 billion ($1,300,000,000 for one executive) dollar severance packages for individual CEO’s while people under their coverage are denied life saving treatments? Like In 2007, when CIGNA denied a California teenager, Nataline Sarkisyan, coverage for a liver transplant the same year it took in 18 billion dollars? I’m a Canadian/British citizen, and I have used the Australian and American health care systems as well. By far the worst system I have used and witnessed (in the developed world) is the American health care system. The six year old daughter of an employee for a logging company I had partnered with was unable to have her teeth fixed, she needed quite major reconstructive surgery. Long story short, we were able to take her to Canada to see a specialist surgeon, he was shocked when he found out she had been denied treatment in the states. A procedure that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to do in America (a cost the family couldn’t afford) was done for free here. 50% of all bankruptcies in the states are caused by health care costs, its essentially 0% in Canada and the rest of the industrialized world. I have a relative who is a doctor who left the states to practice in Canada because he said he wasn’t able to give patients the treatments that would have been most effective, instead he had to give them what was most “cost effective”. He came back to Canada so he said he could practice health care and not cost care. My question to those of you who believe in for profit health care is why don’t you argue for America to go back to for profit fire service? Why not a for profit police service? In the 19th century your house or building was allowed to burn to the ground if you didn’t have fire insurance. Why are there no posts on here telling me how wonderful private fire departments are? Because if you did you would look like a nut. We now consider them a public necessity and a public good. If you believe putting a price on human heath is a good idea, fine, go ahead, live in that world, but at least be consistent. In my world heath care is a right and not a commodity, end of story.
Here is a the former chief executive at CIGNA interviewed on Democracy Now two days ago, he was head of corporate communications when Nataline Sarkisyan died because they had denied her a liver transplant.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insurance_exec_wendell_porter
July 19th, 2009 | 7:09 pm
Padraig, what in the world does working have to do with medicaid?
One need not be unemployed to qualify for their program.
If pregnant women are uninsured, it is because they choose to be.
Here’s the information from Texas re: Medicaid for Pregnant women. Also note that if a woman receives Medicaid or Chip during her pregnancy, her child automatically receives the program for the first year of life.
A single woman with no other children can make up to $1800 and have her medical bills covered by some form of state insurance.
A couple can make up to $2,429 and still recieve coverage for the mother.
A family with one other child? $3,052
Of course, the more children you have, the more money you can make and still qualify.
http://www.hhsc.state.tx.us/Help/HealthCare/Women/index.html#LowIncome
3000/month for a family of 3 in Texas will get you a nice home in a nice neighborhood and anything you could need. I know, because that’s how much we make with a family of 4.
Coverage for “the working poor” already exists.
July 19th, 2009 | 8:48 pm
“This is what I don’t get about this pro-life blog’s opposition to expanding health care coverage. Are you only pro-life until you have to help pay for them?
Mr. Smith’s general opposition to government health care appears to be rooted in fear of the increased power over our lives that nationalized health care will give government, and the conviction that current trends in ‘bioethics’ and attempts to reduce medical cost will result in cutting off coverage or worse for ‘useless eaters’ and ‘life unworthy of life.’”
And I share many of those same concerns. But whose hands are access to health care in now? Insurance companies and private employers. (Note: I have worked for a health insurer, currently belong to an HMO, but still have dental coverage via a co-pay between the HMO and insurance.)
The insurance companies, pretty much by necessity, cherry-pick the best risks. If you have a pre-existing condition or are high risk for some other reason, your best hope is to go to work for a large company with a group plan that will be willing to accept you because they have enough healthy folks in the pool to balance you out. And if you haven’t heard any horror stories about insurance companies denying or delaying coverage, let me know and I’ll dig some up, won’t take but a minute.
Employers are hit and miss, mostly depending on the competition level for employees in their field. That’s why, for instance, Wal-mart employees have a hard time getting full medical benefits. If you work for Google or Intel or the federal government, you’re all set. Non-unionized manual labor? Forget it. Sole proprietor or entrepreneur? Better marry someone with family coverage. Most of the entrepreneurs I know would never have gotten started without their spousal safety net.
So what coverage can we actually provide? My guess would be some kind of very basic no-frills coverage that frankly, nobody would settle for if they could do better. Hospitalization, most prescriptions, and some preventive care covered with no or minimal co-pays. If you want better coverage, supplemental coverage available via third parties or HMO’s, paid for out of pocket or by employer. Essentially single-payer for the currently uninsured, supplemented by pretty much the current situation for the rest of us.
July 19th, 2009 | 8:49 pm
I should have made it clearer that those numbers are per month. Sorry about the confusion.
July 19th, 2009 | 11:00 pm
Well I think that Congress et al. are being TOO slow and deliberate in their failure to act with the speed and force of stampeding cattle in impeaching Obama. We can learn a lot from other animals when it comes to having the sense to try at least to get away from danger. I don’t think it’s bad to get rid of health insurance, which would be an essential part of lowering the cost and increasing the quality of of medical care, making it more possible for doctors and hospitals do do their what their jobs actually are, straightening out the economy, and rebuilding the national character, but not this way. We need to get rid of insurance companies AND Obama. Then by a couple of generations from now doctors and hospitals could be what they are supposed to be and everyone would be better off. First we got so stupid and weak that we allowed ourselves to be cowed into living in fear of not having health insurance, then the stupidity and weakness blossomed into electing this unqualified travesty as a president with training wheels because we wanted our problems solved for us, without even having the brains to ask “change to what?” Just “change.” Which is like thinking that a sentence without a verb is a sentence. Wesley, stampeding cattle are light years ahead of us now. Give the cows some credit. We need them for milk and meat and leather; what makes us think we don’t need their sense, too?
July 19th, 2009 | 11:02 pm
I mean, at least they have a sense of self-preservation.
July 19th, 2009 | 11:03 pm
Lauren, they weren’t my numbers, they were from the Department of Health and Human Services. They’re the ones that say (or said, in 2005) that there are 45.8 million uninsured, and that the vast majority of the uninsured are working individuals or the children of those who work.
Here’s the link again:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/uninsured-cps/index.htm#income
If, as you seem to think, this number is some sort of illusion, then fine. Obama will set up his health care system and nobody will sign up. Problem solved.
July 20th, 2009 | 10:43 am
Padraig, the point is that insurance coverage already exists for those people during pregnancy. Pro-life groups help them to sign up.
The fact that the don’t do it is not the fault of a system needing to be pulverized. If someone could either afford private insurance, but chooses not to, or could receive benefits from an existing government program, they shouldn’t be counted amongst the “uninsured.”
Obama’s plan will FORCE everyone to have insurance. People will have to sign up.
July 20th, 2009 | 11:40 am
Lauren: That’s right. “The uninsured” is a buzzword made up to terrify people into fearing not having insurance, and has been promoted by the same media that got Obama elected, and just as Hillary Clinton’s “health care reform” ended up benefitting only the insurance companies, somehow Obama’s plan will too. The game with this “the uninsured” thing was to browbeat everyone into thinking they MUST have insurance, and Obama’s plan is simply the next step after that. It’s capitalism, which in its true form could not survive as free enterprise and freedom of choice iby the consumer n a nation of sheep, subverted into fascism, and it began when insurance companies, which violated the ethics of capitalism. ran amok because too many people were stupid enough to let them, just as they were too stupid not to elect Obama. It’s a matter of people not being willing to stand on their own two feet. Otherwise the antics of the insurance companies wouldn’t have been tolerated long since. Now we’ve got the antics of Obama, and it’s still all about insurance.
July 20th, 2009 | 3:39 pm
“Padraig, the point is that insurance coverage already exists for those people during pregnancy. Pro-life groups help them to sign up.”
Lauren, please read the numbers. The 46 million uninsured are not all pregnant. It’s after they’ve HAD the kids that they have no coverage. And again, I agreed that most women having babies can get some kind of medical care, even if it’s just dropping in to the emergency room.
(Note: I used to work at a University-related hospital that did tons of research but had no childbirth facility whatsoever. They STILL recorded 5-10 childbirths a year mostly via their emergency room.)
And Lauren and Ianthe, if you don’t want to have insurance, don’t have it. If you don’t want to have a roof over your head, don’t. If you don’t want to wear a coat when it’s 10 below, don’t. I’ve seen plenty of homeless people pass on all three at once. It’s your choice entirely and always will be.
July 20th, 2009 | 6:53 pm
Padraig, now you’re mixing your message.
Here’s what you first said “Goyl, what Birthright does is very admirable. However, do the unwed mothers you help have sufficient prenatal care? Who’s paying their childbirth medical costs? And what happens if they have a high-risk pregnancy?
I appreciate the generosity of your church, but it’s going to take a lot more than $1,200 to help these women out.
This is what I don’t get about this pro-life blog’s opposition to expanding health care coverage. Are you only pro-life until you have to help pay for them?”
I showed that women have access to prenatal care under existing programs, but now you’ve shifted to something else entirely.
July 20th, 2009 | 10:30 pm
“I showed that women have access to prenatal care under existing programs, but now you’ve shifted to something else entirely.”
Yes, I conceded that point, several times in fact. But if the babies come home from the hospital and they and their mothers have no health coverage, that’s “something else entirely?” Sorry, I find that woefully inadequate. “We got you into this world kid, now you’re on your own.”
July 21st, 2009 | 10:13 am
Padraig, that’s just not true.
Children who are born to mother’s who were on medicaid or SCHIP during pregnancy are automatically granted medicaid during their first year of life. After that,they are required to reapply yearly. Unless the parent’s financial situation dramatically increases, they will qualify year after year for medicaid or SCHIP.
You make it sound as though once the child leaves the hospital they are on their own. That is simply not the case.
As for the mothers, there are tons of programs already in place for women to receive healthcare, even if they make more than what would qualify them for traditional healthcare. County health clinics opperate using a sliding scale, and if somethign seroius happens, the women again become candidates for Medicaid.
The point is that there is a systemin place for women and children to receive healthcare during and after the pregnancy. They DO NOT come home from the hospital without health coverage!
July 22nd, 2009 | 5:41 pm
Well of course it will cost more. He’s a Democrat isn’t he. For the love of God someone start the process of impeaching this guy before it’s too late.
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