Monday, April 03, 2006
As I have written before, organizations take their character from the top down. When you have George W. Bush as your president, you get men like Karl Rove in the White House, men like Don Rumsfeld as your Defense Secretary, men like Alan B. Hubbard as your assistant to the president for economic policy.
The many permutations of diseased voodoo economics never cease to appall me, and yet another was on display in today’s New York Times. Whenever you hear a republican discussing medical coverage you can be assured the discussion is going to be disgusting.
Liberals never cease to wonder that republican leaders can hold a host of opinions about vitally important national issues like healthcare that are completely out of the mainstream, but they still get elected. Masses of money from corporate donors, one-issue voters, and the massive ignorance of the electorate help out.
Take it as a given that the vast majority of voters in this country favor more health insurance offered to more people, paid for by taxpayer money.
So Hubbard wheels out President Bush’s solution to the problem. Need I even go on? Dare I lance a target this fat?
#Sigh# Yes. Until people get a full, clear view of the mendacity of the GOP I must continue on, through rain or shine, to expose fools like this.
Hubbard starts by pointing out what we all know: health care costs in this country are skyrocketing. We all agree on that. But what’s the solution, oh great neocon master of trickle-down economics?
“Health care is expensive because the vast majority of Americans consume it as if it were free.”
Oh, yes. I agree. I go in for frivolous prostate exams on a weekly basis, my friend. You got me.
Despite the appalling insult to our collective plight in this statement, the thing about this that angers me the most is the fact that Hubbard knows, flat out, that this is untrue. Anyone who has ever taken an economics 101 class knows that there is a fundamental, qualitative difference between luxury goods and necessities and the supply and demand curves of both. There’s a lot of flexibility in our demand for jewelry. There’s not any in our demand for health care.
But Hubbard’s argument is that if we shopped doctors more aggressively costs would go down.
Who the Hell is he talking to? People in HMOs don’t have the option to shop doctors. People rescued by ambulances don’t have the option to shop ambulance companies, nor do they have the option to dictate to the ambulance which hospital they go to as they are lying on a bed in the back, possibly in the midst of a heart attack or seizure, and in any case not in any condition to be making important decisions in the midst of a medical emergency.
When you are stabilized in the ER maybe then you can start asking the tough questions about costs, and whether or not they can transport you to another hospital for treatment. Many people, if not most, do ask those questions, if they’re lucid. It’s called getting a second opinion. And maybe even a third.
People who undergo voluntary surgeries always shop doctors for price. What fools go get liposuction from the first doctor their eyes fall on in the yellow pages?
Hubbard then goes on to describe the president’s Health Savings Accounts, a way to save money tax-free to apply to skyrocketing deductibles.
Hubbard is trying to use a Band-Aid to staunch the sucking chest wound in American health care. Deductables and co-insurance on catastrophic health care plans can bring out-of-pocket health care costs for chronic problems into the tens of thousands of dollars a year, a cost that middle-class people simply can’t afford.
Catastrophic health care plans don’t cover preventive procedures that have been proven to save money over time. Castastrophic health care plans don’t cover dental procedures, and even good dental plans pay little more than half of the costs for procedures like root canals and crowns that cost a thousand or two thousand dollars and are procedures that are as common as rain among the majority of adults in America.
Catastrophic plans also don’t cover most of the visits to you doctor you will need when you get a persistent cough, or a skin fungus, or chronic acid reflux, or any one of a thousand maladies that needs a doctor’s attention but doesn’t rise to the level of “catastrophic.” Hundreds of dollars a visit, and a hundred more dollars a month for medication, are entirely out-of-pocket.
If you make $100,000 a year you don’t need the government’s help with health care costs. A few hundred here and a few hundred there are no sweat. But we, in decent society, understand that all Americans deserve most kinds of health care regardless of whether they can afford it or not. The majority of Americans understand that if you are scraping by working seventy hours a week at $8 an hour you don’t have any savings at all, nor do you have the money for that $200 doctor visit, the $100 medication she prescribed, or the $600 you need for that crown for your aching tooth.
Look around you. You are surrounded by the 45 million people in this country who lack the health insurance you enjoy. They deliver your pizza, serve you at restaurants, work in your mailroom, and clean and maintain the schools your kids go to.
You can turn your head and simply refuse, through your company’s policies or the policies of the people you send to Washington, to provide them with healthcare. You can then watch as they physically disintegrate before your eyes. You can watch them as they file through their place of employment in an endless procession, quitting every five months because they found a job that pays a little more, being fired every five months because they don’t give a shit about their job because everyone knows they job is a joke that doesn’t provide a living wage or health care, two basics of simply surviving.
Then you’ll complain about how hard it is to find good help, like some jackass who pays $14,000 for a Kia and then complains about what a shitty car it is.
Or you’ll blame your problems on “the market.” You can change the market, and the country, by voting for politicians who believe in universal health care.
Or you can simply not care about anyone other than yourself, in which case you will vote for George W. Bush. And he will appoint a man like Alan Hubbard to help him craft his economic and health care policy. And their solution to health care will simply be an opportunity for people to save money tax-free to pay for health care costs.
Democrats have ideas, Paula. One of them is universal health care. Every other developed nation on Earth has it, including Canada, Japan, and most of Europe. Many nations far poorer than us have it, including Cuba, which is one reason their infant mortality rate is lower than ours. No nation spends more on health care per capita than the United States, and no other nation on Earth gets so little for so much. Its time to Fix the System. If you prefer a Band-Aid, then keep voting republican.
The many permutations of diseased voodoo economics never cease to appall me, and yet another was on display in today’s New York Times. Whenever you hear a republican discussing medical coverage you can be assured the discussion is going to be disgusting.
Liberals never cease to wonder that republican leaders can hold a host of opinions about vitally important national issues like healthcare that are completely out of the mainstream, but they still get elected. Masses of money from corporate donors, one-issue voters, and the massive ignorance of the electorate help out.
Take it as a given that the vast majority of voters in this country favor more health insurance offered to more people, paid for by taxpayer money.
So Hubbard wheels out President Bush’s solution to the problem. Need I even go on? Dare I lance a target this fat?
#Sigh# Yes. Until people get a full, clear view of the mendacity of the GOP I must continue on, through rain or shine, to expose fools like this.
Hubbard starts by pointing out what we all know: health care costs in this country are skyrocketing. We all agree on that. But what’s the solution, oh great neocon master of trickle-down economics?
“Health care is expensive because the vast majority of Americans consume it as if it were free.”
Oh, yes. I agree. I go in for frivolous prostate exams on a weekly basis, my friend. You got me.
Despite the appalling insult to our collective plight in this statement, the thing about this that angers me the most is the fact that Hubbard knows, flat out, that this is untrue. Anyone who has ever taken an economics 101 class knows that there is a fundamental, qualitative difference between luxury goods and necessities and the supply and demand curves of both. There’s a lot of flexibility in our demand for jewelry. There’s not any in our demand for health care.
But Hubbard’s argument is that if we shopped doctors more aggressively costs would go down.
Who the Hell is he talking to? People in HMOs don’t have the option to shop doctors. People rescued by ambulances don’t have the option to shop ambulance companies, nor do they have the option to dictate to the ambulance which hospital they go to as they are lying on a bed in the back, possibly in the midst of a heart attack or seizure, and in any case not in any condition to be making important decisions in the midst of a medical emergency.
When you are stabilized in the ER maybe then you can start asking the tough questions about costs, and whether or not they can transport you to another hospital for treatment. Many people, if not most, do ask those questions, if they’re lucid. It’s called getting a second opinion. And maybe even a third.
People who undergo voluntary surgeries always shop doctors for price. What fools go get liposuction from the first doctor their eyes fall on in the yellow pages?
Hubbard then goes on to describe the president’s Health Savings Accounts, a way to save money tax-free to apply to skyrocketing deductibles.
Hubbard is trying to use a Band-Aid to staunch the sucking chest wound in American health care. Deductables and co-insurance on catastrophic health care plans can bring out-of-pocket health care costs for chronic problems into the tens of thousands of dollars a year, a cost that middle-class people simply can’t afford.
Catastrophic health care plans don’t cover preventive procedures that have been proven to save money over time. Castastrophic health care plans don’t cover dental procedures, and even good dental plans pay little more than half of the costs for procedures like root canals and crowns that cost a thousand or two thousand dollars and are procedures that are as common as rain among the majority of adults in America.
Catastrophic plans also don’t cover most of the visits to you doctor you will need when you get a persistent cough, or a skin fungus, or chronic acid reflux, or any one of a thousand maladies that needs a doctor’s attention but doesn’t rise to the level of “catastrophic.” Hundreds of dollars a visit, and a hundred more dollars a month for medication, are entirely out-of-pocket.
If you make $100,000 a year you don’t need the government’s help with health care costs. A few hundred here and a few hundred there are no sweat. But we, in decent society, understand that all Americans deserve most kinds of health care regardless of whether they can afford it or not. The majority of Americans understand that if you are scraping by working seventy hours a week at $8 an hour you don’t have any savings at all, nor do you have the money for that $200 doctor visit, the $100 medication she prescribed, or the $600 you need for that crown for your aching tooth.
Look around you. You are surrounded by the 45 million people in this country who lack the health insurance you enjoy. They deliver your pizza, serve you at restaurants, work in your mailroom, and clean and maintain the schools your kids go to.
You can turn your head and simply refuse, through your company’s policies or the policies of the people you send to Washington, to provide them with healthcare. You can then watch as they physically disintegrate before your eyes. You can watch them as they file through their place of employment in an endless procession, quitting every five months because they found a job that pays a little more, being fired every five months because they don’t give a shit about their job because everyone knows they job is a joke that doesn’t provide a living wage or health care, two basics of simply surviving.
Then you’ll complain about how hard it is to find good help, like some jackass who pays $14,000 for a Kia and then complains about what a shitty car it is.
Or you’ll blame your problems on “the market.” You can change the market, and the country, by voting for politicians who believe in universal health care.
Or you can simply not care about anyone other than yourself, in which case you will vote for George W. Bush. And he will appoint a man like Alan Hubbard to help him craft his economic and health care policy. And their solution to health care will simply be an opportunity for people to save money tax-free to pay for health care costs.
Democrats have ideas, Paula. One of them is universal health care. Every other developed nation on Earth has it, including Canada, Japan, and most of Europe. Many nations far poorer than us have it, including Cuba, which is one reason their infant mortality rate is lower than ours. No nation spends more on health care per capita than the United States, and no other nation on Earth gets so little for so much. Its time to Fix the System. If you prefer a Band-Aid, then keep voting republican.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 1:28 PM 
