quote:

Originally posted by Cajun76:
No fair, Hayate. You're introducing facts and alternatives.

Next thing you know, people might start thinking for themselves, making decisions on their own, deciding their own destiny or being self reliant, a catastrophe for any decent Koolaid drinking liberal .

Facts and alternatives are always better than lies and opposition for it's own sake.. You guys kill me... It's like you think that everything is black & white.. One of my biggest beefs with the republicans on this whole issue was that as much as they opposed the proposed bill the dems put up, they had no alternative that they put up till now .. and if they had an alternative perhaps it would have been better to push that.. and inform people about it and put it up to the people for considerationrather than just getting people all worked up against what the dems put up.

I didn't see this...

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
In my opinion, and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, I really think the Republicans made it more likely that a public option gets passed by refusing to come to the table and working with Dems on health care--instead they just refused to negotiate and latched onto the health insurance companies' scare tactics.

I think if they had negotiated with the Baucus bill, and said "ok we will all vote for it but only if you do this and this and this and here is the realistic price tag that is our limit" then it would have been passed without a public option and with more conservative stuff in it (though it's already pretty conservative). But they refused to join the negotiations, and only Olympia Snowe joined in and negotiated in good faith.

I think Republican politicians got used to being the majority party and aren't used to being the minority and compromising and making deals with the majority. But they know that the Dem majority isn't all powerful so they have gambled on obstructionism, but again I think all it's done is made it more likely that a public option will get passed, because Dems don't feel like they can pass a plan with GOP support so there's no reason to bother compromising. And now the GOP comes up with a plan, some 6 months after the whole health care debate started.

ding ding...

quote:

Originally posted by Bearcat99:

quote:

Originally posted by Cajun76:
No fair, Hayate. You're introducing facts and alternatives.

Next thing you know, people might start thinking for themselves, making decisions on their own, deciding their own destiny or being self reliant, a catastrophe for any decent Koolaid drinking liberal .

Facts and alternatives are always better than lies and opposition for it's own sake.. You guys kill me... It's like you think that everything is black & white.. One of my biggest beefs with the republicans on this whole issue was that as much as they opposed the proposed bill the dems put up, they had no alternative that they put up till now .. and if they had an alternative perhaps it would have been better to push that.. and inform people about it and put it up to the people for considerationrather than just getting people all worked up against what the dems put up.

That's *not* how I see it, nor do I believe in infinite shades of gray either, it lets moral equivocation fester.

Republicans didn't put up alternative bills because they believed or at least heard that Obama (supposedly speaking for the Democrats) wanted bipartisanship. It has become clear that instead of real reform, dealing with the root causes like tort reform and other common sense measures took a back seat to special provisions for unions and forcing a government option, which would not be needed if real, common sense reform were enacted.

Tort reform, deregulating some of the ridiculous requirements on insurance companies so they can compete across state lines (some of that is state law that needs reform), education of people on programs they can already take advantage of are all common sense measures that are being ignored but contribute to the rising health care costs that the Democrats claim to want to control.

Instead they're putting a Hello Kitty band-aid on a shotgun blast. Health care costs will continue to rise if the real causes aren't addressed.

Since many of these root cause are *not* apparently going to be addressed, now separate alternatives are being produced.

Charles Krauthammer makes some good points, I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but it's something to think about.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009080602933.html

Dems are too far in the tank with the lawyers' lobby. They don't even acknowledge that a problem exists with billions of waste in lawsuits.

Yet, the "whole system is broken."

Yea..

Being unemployed for a while I had time to do things like site down and read the various drafts. They all stink.. No one seems to have the guts to address the real problems, but if we took care of them prices would go down and stabilize.

1. Doctors and Nurses, we need more primary care docs and more nurses. It would be fairly cheep to better subsidize their schooling, and trade free school with some requirements that they be GP's and be perhaps willing to work in areas that are very under-served.
2. Tort reform, yea we need to fix that mess but the payoff is not very big. Still it needs fixing, the phrase defensive medicine should be about preventing disease not preventing lawsuits.
3. Now, the real meat.. Fix the way billing works. Right now there is are a load of different billing codes for the same procedure depending on which insurance you are dealing with. The result is that billing is a damm nightmare, the billing departments are nearly as large as the care givers, and worse yet expensive billing consultants are brought in to help out as well. We should switch to a standard billing code set and move the industry over to it. Yea, computers are going to need to get changed... We could throw a fairly small amount of stimulus money at the problem and get a real pay off in the long run.
4. Finally the elephant in the room.. HIPPA, yea it was a great idea but it might need some tweaking. Right now anyone in health-care spends a lot of time proving and re-proving that they are following HIPPA. There needs to be some streamlining on how HIPPA works, so that we are not spending a big chunk of our money on paying lawyers and HIPPA compliance auditors and HIPPA compliance departments.
5. Medicare fraud.. What?? We know its there we should be going after it hardcore, and stop slapping them on the wrist, its time to send them to jail.

All of the above would result in some pretty noticeable savings at a fairly low cost to the taxpayers.

BSS_AIJO!

quote:

Originally posted by iroseland01:
Yea..

Being unemployed for a while I had time to do things like site down and read the various drafts. They all stink.. No one seems to have the guts to address the real problems, but if we took care of them prices would go down and stabilize.

1. Doctors and Nurses, we need more primary care docs and more nurses. It would be fairly cheep to better subsidize their schooling, and trade free school with some requirements that they be GP's and be perhaps willing to work in areas that are very under-served.
2. Tort reform, yea we need to fix that mess but the payoff is not very big. Still it needs fixing, the phrase defensive medicine should be about preventing disease not preventing lawsuits.
3. Now, the real meat.. Fix the way billing works. Right now there is are a load of different billing codes for the same procedure depending on which insurance you are dealing with. The result is that billing is a damm nightmare, the billing departments are nearly as large as the care givers, and worse yet expensive billing consultants are brought in to help out as well. We should switch to a standard billing code set and move the industry over to it. Yea, computers are going to need to get changed... We could throw a fairly small amount of stimulus money at the problem and get a real pay off in the long run.
4. Finally the elephant in the room.. HIPPA, yea it was a great idea but it might need some tweaking. Right now anyone in health-care spends a lot of time proving and re-proving that they are following HIPPA. There needs to be some streamlining on how HIPPA works, so that we are not spending a big chunk of our money on paying lawyers and HIPPA compliance auditors and HIPPA compliance departments.
5. Medicare fraud.. What?? We know its there we should be going after it hardcore, and stop slapping them on the wrist, its time to send them to jail.

All of the above would result in some pretty noticeable savings at a fairly low cost to the taxpayers.

BSS_AIJO!

I think your missing the dividends tort reform would provide. It's not just the huge, uneven settlements/lottery that would be affected, but the outrageous sums that healthcare providers have to pay and the tests they order to protect themselves, costs that are passed directly to the consumer.

Agree with much of the rest, just an example of common sense measures that aren't being looked at, but continue to drive up costs.

Editorial
The Republican Health Plan

Published: November 5, 2009

House Republican leaders have produced their own health care reform bill. Here is the first thing you need to know: It would do almost nothing to reduce the scandalously high number of Americans who have no insurance. And it makes only a token stab at slowing the relentlessly rising costs of medical care.
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Despite that, the Republicans are pitching their bill as far more affordable than the Democrats’ approach. And you are sure to hear a lot in coming days about how it could reduce health insurance premiums. How it compares in that respect with the Democratic proposal is not yet clear. But a lot of the Republicans’ savings on premiums come from reduced coverage. Pay less and get less.

The good news is that this bill has no chance of passing. The bad news is that unless the White House and Congressional Democrats push back with the hard facts, the Republicans could use it to spread false hope of a “cheaper” alternative to scuttle real health care reform.

There’s no question that the Republicans’ bill is cheaper because it does so little to help the uninsured. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would provide $61 billion over 10 years to expand coverage, compared with more than $1 trillion in the Democrats’ bill.

That paltry effort, the budget office estimates, would extend coverage to a few million people who would otherwise be uninsured in 2019, leaving 52 million citizens and legal residents below Medicare age without coverage or about 17 percent of that population, right where it is today. This is a dismaying abdication of responsibility.

The Republican bill is an amalgam of market-oriented and state-based reforms that conservatives have long proposed, including enhancement of tax-sheltered accounts to help pay premiums and allowing people to buy insurance in other states that might permit skimpier benefits than their home state.

It has some good provisions, such as prohibiting insurers from imposing annual or lifetime caps on what they will pay and automatic enrollment of workers in employer-sponsored group coverage. But it would not prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on pre-existing conditions.

The Republicans have been railing that the Democratic reforms will do little to slow the rapid rise in medical costs. But neither party has a solution. The Republican bill would cap malpractice awards — a clear infringement of the rights of injured patients. It would get lesser savings by requiring electronic transactions for administrative tasks and opening an approval process for generic biological medicines. The Democratic bills would use both of those for savings and initiate an array of pilot projects to try to find solutions.

The Republican bill’s main emphasis is on reducing the cost of health insurance premiums, a real concern. Compared with current trends, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the Republican bill, the average premium would drop by 7 to 10 percent for employees enrolled in group plans at small businesses and by 5 to 8 percent for people who buy their own policies. At large employers, where most Americans get group coverage, the average premium might drop by a modest 0 to 3 percent.

Part of the premium reduction was attributed to savings in the cost of medical services. But much was attributed to shrinking the services covered. The Democrats plan to set minimum benefit requirements to protect people from skimpy policies that leave them without adequate protection when they need it.

The budget office is planning to estimate how the far more complex Democratic bills would affect premiums. Americans need to know that so they can make a full comparison. But there should be no illusions here. The “affordable” Republican health care reform isn’t health care reform.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11...ion/06fri1.html?_r=1