Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Piecemeal Repeal: Dems Cancel Long Term Care Provision of Obamacare
Drudge is headlining this as "Obamacare Unraveling," and that certainly is true. The Obama Administration has announced that it is canceling the section of Obamacare called the CLASS Act for being so unsustainable as to even horrify liberals.
The Obama administration's signature health overhaul law, under relentless assault by Republicans, has suffered its first major casualty - a long-term care insurance plan.
The program, expected to launch in 2012, had been dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.
Proponents, including many groups that fought to pass the health care law, have vowed a vigorous effort to rescue the program, insisting that Congress gave the administration broad authority to make changes. Long-term care includes not only nursing homes, but such services as home health aides for disabled people.
...
Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a long-standing priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
Although sponsored by the government, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. The money could go for services at home or to help with nursing home bills.
But a central design flaw dogged CLASS. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.
The CLASS Act was supposed to accomplish three things: provide "free" long-term care for the elderly, burnish the Dems' reputation for compassion, and (most important) provide a crucial bit of accounting legerdemain to allow the CBO to score the overall health care law as being a budget reducer. The part about CLASS being a budget reduction program was especially ludicrous, almost silly, but its consequences were deadly serious for us all
In deep-sixing the CLASS Act, the Administration just forfeited $86 billion in savings on the Affordable Care Act. That’s because the CLASS Act was a net revenue positive in the ten-year window of the legislation, because it collected more in premiums that it paid out in the early years, according to CBO scoring.
So the effective nullification of the CLASS Act costs $86 billion. But it’s unlikely that $86 billion will be made up in any other way. If Congress repealed the CLASS Act, they might have to find offsets. But since the White House just isn’t going to implement the program, the savings won’t be realized but nobody has to worry about paygo or anything. It just blows a hole in the medium-term budget.
Forget everything else, you know there is something wrong with the system when an unsustainable entitlement program can be scored as, not just budget neutral, but as reducing the budget. This is a prime example of the cynic's phrase "the real scandal is what's legal." A lot of folks on the right have mused aloud that, were a CEO to offer the same number of outrageous lies used to pass Obamacare, he would be in Club Fed for life. Not so if you are a member of Congress or the President! Not only do they have legislative and executive immunity for their official acts, but they seem to have a near-bulletproof electoral immunity as well.
Not that this matters to the Left. People are already pitching a bitch over the Obama Administration's "cave." Cave to what? Math? Human nature? Not everything bad in the world happens because of racist Reupblicans, you know.
(Btw, according to this report, Judd Gregg was the one who managed to insert the requirement that CLASS be certified as sustainable over 75 years, which is what ultimately lead HHS to conclude the program couldn't be implemented as drafted. Sometimes those moderate NE Republicans can teach the rest of us a thing or two).
Every Republican in Congress voted against Obamacare. Conservatives rallied nationwide to protest its passage. Joe Wilson correctly, if rudely, yelled out "You Lie!" at some of Obama's most egregious whoppers (spoken at a joint session of Congress). And, most memorably, tens of thousands of people trooped to DC on the weekend of Obamacare's passage, surrounded the Capitol Building, and vigorously protested the impending cram down. For this we were called racist and worse. No, we were worried that a group of people who have no grasp of economic or common sense had seized the treasury and were re-writing some of the most basic economic relationships in our society. Sorry if you are offended when it turns out we were right.
On the other hand, every liberal in the land will no doubt defend Obamacare with all the usual well-thought out arguments about dog food, dead babies, and wearing your sister's dentures. It will simply never occur to them that their crazy anecdotes are not representative of the overall health care system, nor will it occur to them that market-based reforms - such as simply allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines the same way you sell freakin' toilet paper - will do a lot more good than their Brobdingnagian schemes.
Sunday Quick Links
It's one of those days when I can't pick just one thing to write about, but don't have time to write about everything:
If you were wondering how Michelle Obama's "secret" trip to Target (did she ever go to Target pre-2008? Does Chicago even have a Target within the city limits?) was memorialized on film, well it's because the White House tipped off the AP. Pretty pathetic.
Chris Christie is the man of the hour. Some say that he is the only (GOP) man for the times: a tough talker who can appeal to Reagan Democrats, and face down the public employee unions. Could be, but unions are only a sliver of the left coalition, and Christie has a lot of political sympathy for virtually every other element of the Democrat base. Among other things, he is as dumb on the environment as Joe Biden (or any other green). We can do better.
Paul Ryan reviews Jeffrey Sachs's new book, describing it as having "veneer of economic analysis cannot conceal what is essentially a crusade against the free enterprise ethic of our republic." Nice to see at least one GOP politician try to take on the intellectual heavies on the left.
This guy wants to believe that the present Wall Street protests are "like Egypt." The protesters are more than just the usual hippies, communists, and nose-ringed college students, says he. There are unions and "grannies" there! Very middle class! (pictures at the link). Right, well any union presence is going to be bused-in astro-turf. As for the "grannies," I think we're all hip to the truth, which is that old leftists like to grasp the mantle of respectable seniors, knowing the media will treat them as cuddly old folks, rather than as socialists who hate their country. Anyway, these protests not "like" Egypt; they are like Greece.
On the other hand, the apparently unprovoked pepper spraying of a couple protesters by a normally desk-bound "cop" is just the sort of thing the blame-America-first crowd loves. You'd think every police officer in NYC would be hip the way leftists use this sort of thing for their own propaganda. San Francisco cops sure do. But, as JFK used to say, there's always one dumb son of a bitch who never gets the word.
The al-Awlaki drone strike was a just result. He may have been "American-born," in the words of media style-books, but he left the US as a small child and was not acting in America's best interests. Obama's been getting this 100% right, but his ambivalence has been undermining his strategy.
An inside view of the intimidation of the health insurance industry during the passage of Obamacare. For all the talk of the "right wing noise machine," if a GOP president and his allies had tried something this heavy-handed, there would have been all sorts of "brave" dissidents rushing to the microphones. But, let Democrats do it, and everyone's all STFU. Has to be because they were worried about unflattering stories published by the White House's media allies - meaning the media - right?
Herman Cain's rise is due entirely to his being the only optimistic candidate. People clearly want to hear his message, yet Cain is held to be "unelectable." OK, assuming he's unelectable, that doesn't mean the "electable" candidates can't learn something from him and his methods.
Btw, I thought Cain (or Santorum) would "shock the world" by running strong in Iowa, but it seems Cain's moment is now, and not four months from now. That means the media will be "vetting" him. In other words, they'll be seeking damning quotes from every disgruntled employee, disappointed corporate rival, and bitter stripper ex-girlfriend (I kid, I kid) that they can find. These are never our republic's finest hours. In fact, they are some of our worst as the elites among us broadcast rumors and innuendos as if they were dispatches from the Somme. Hope Cain is ready for it. I also hope he is ready to fight back in the manner of Clarence Thomas, rather than flinch away in the manner of virtually every other GOP politico unfortunate to have gone through this process.
Michael Wilbon asks a damn good question about a new Walter Payton biography: "what is the exact purpose of writing a book, 12 years after Payton's depressing death at 45, that goes to agonizing lengths to tell us essentially that Payton was flawed?" Supposedly, it's because Payton's public persona was that of a solid citizen when in private he cheated on his wife and used, get this, pain killers. It's that darn hypocrisy, again! Really, a professional athlete who sleeps with women not his wife? That's news? What about a look at Mrs. Payton. Maybe she was a pain in the a**? And since when was pain killer use a scandal? What's really galling is knowing that journalists who love to flog this sort of information probably couldn't stand up to a similar level of scrutiny.
The One Giveth, And The One Taketh
Great line by Newt, Obama scares seniors every day. He made a strong substantive point, which is that why should be have to live in a system where a President can threaten to withhold social security benefits. It goes to the heart of individual autonomy. My wife responded, “Newt for V.P.” I think he’s earning that spot but may also be the comeback kid in this primary season.
Worker's Of America: Your "Free" Health Care Is Going To Cost More Than Originally Expected
A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.
The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014.
Some of the administration’s closest allies on healthcare reform warn this situation could dramatically undercut support for the law, which already is unpopular with many voters and contributed to Democrats losing the House in the 2010 midterm elections.
At issue is a so-called “firewall” in the law that denies subsidies to workers whose employers offer quality, affordable coverage.The firewall applies to plans with premiums that cost less than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income. If a worker has to dole out more than that amount to buy coverage, the employer coverage is considered unaffordable and the worker is eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on the new exchanges.
Initially, advocates thought the threshold also applied to family coverage. If premium costs paid to cover a worker’s family cost 20 percent of a worker’s income, for example, the worker and his or her family should be eligible for subsidies.
But in calculating the bill’s cost last year, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) took the law to mean that employers and their families aren’t eligible for subsidies as long as the individual plan is affordable — regardless of the price of the family plan.
This means the costs to an employee for covering his or her family could be too high to afford for many working families.
“If you’ve got employer-based coverage that’s affordable for the employee only,” Guyer said, “the family is expected to take the employer coverage even if it“s totally unaffordable and no one in the family is eligible for the exchange subsidies.”
The Doctor Is Out: CA Faces Doctor Shortage
Retiring doctors, low Medi-Cal reimbursement rates, and the federal health care reform law are exacerbating California's shortage of primary care physicians, Bay Area health care providers and medical associations say.
Already, only a quarter of California's counties meet the recommended ratio of 60 to 80 primary care doctors for every 100,000 residents, according to the California Medical Association. (In the Bay Area, there are 78 primary care physicians for every 100,000 residents.)
“We are very much worried about the shortage in general,” said Callie Langton, health care workforce policy expert at the California Academy of Family Physicians. “Twenty years ago, a lot more physicians were going into primary care, and the replacement rate is not high.”
Nearly a third of doctors are 60 or older and are close to retirement, but only 42 percent of medical students are going into primary care. According to the California Medical Association and the California Healthcare Foundation, the number of young doctors pursuing primary care decreased over the past decade because the it's one of the lowest paid medical specialties.
Family practitioners earn an average of $143,000, while anesthesiologists and surgeons can earn well over $200,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While the number of primary care doctors is shrinking, the demand for the care they provide is about to soar, thanks to the federal health care reform law.
Under the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, as many as 6 million more Californians will be able to obtain health insurance coverage, with nearly half eligible for coverage under Medi-Cal. Many of the newly insured will try to seek treatment from primary care physicians and family practice doctors, who provide the kind of cradle-to-grave, coordinated care that emphasizes preventive medicine, which can help reduce health care costs.
But fewer physicians than ever — just 57 percent — say they are now willing to accept new Medi-Cal patients, according to the California Healthcare Foundation. Many doctors say the reimbursement rate — that is, the amount of money the state pays them for treating patients — is too low. California sets the rate, which is the fourth lowest among all 50 states, according to the California Medical Association.
RIP Jack LaLanne
Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. He was 96.
LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, his longtime agent Rick Hersh said.
Lalanne ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end, Hersh said.
"I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine LaLanne, Lalanne's wife of 51 years and a frequent partner in his television appearances, said in a written statement.
Just before he had heart valve surgery in 2009 at age 95, Jack Lalanne told his family that dying would wreck his image, his publicist Ariel Hankin said at the time.
LaLanne may have been a showman, and a bit of a ham, but he was very serious about health and fitness:
In 1936 in his native Oakland, LaLanne opened a health studio that included weight-training for women and athletes. Those were revolutionary notions at the time, because of the theory that weight training made an athlete slow and "muscle bound" and made a woman look masculine.
"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights," he once said. "It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out.
"It was the same with women. Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer," LaLanne said.
The son of poor French immigrants, he was born in 1914 and grew up to become a sugar addict, he said.
The turning point occurred one night when he heard a lecture by pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, who advocated the benefits of brown rice, whole wheat and a vegetarian diet.
"He got me so enthused," LaLanne said. "After the lecture I went to his dressing room and spent an hour and a half with him. He said, 'Jack, you're a walking garbage can.'"
Soon after, LaLanne constructed a makeshift gym in his back yard. "I had all these firemen and police working out there and I kind of used them as guinea pigs," he said.
He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.
"It's a lifestyle, it's something you do the rest of your life," LaLanne said. "How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it."
Don't Call The Doctor: Warriors Get Rid of Killer Trainer
There's a lot of talk about making wholesale changes in the organization, from coaching staff to the GM's office, to the food vendors. You know what would make a real difference right away? Get rid of the current medical staff (assuming there is one. for all we know they just get by with smelling salts and Ben-Gay). Every year, the Warriors' slim hopes are dashed by seemingly endless injuries that leave their roster hopelessly depleted for months on end. The team has a depressing tendency to endure season-ending injuries, even to guys in their early twenties. Then, the ones who survive get run ragged as they play dozens of "seven-man roster" games...which they lose. I tell you, it's depressing to think of how Stephen Curry might be getting mistreated as we speak.
A day before the Warriors are expected to have all 15 players healthy and availaable for the first time this season, head athletic trainer Tom Abdenour announced Tuesday that he is leaving to take the same position at San Diego State.
Abdenour, 56, is in his 24th season with the Warriors and said he will stay with the team until it finds a replacement. He was hired before the 1987-88 season and was inducted into the National Athletic Trainer's Association Hall of Fame in 1990.
Recently, Abdenour has come under criticism from fans because of the Warriors' cyclical injury problems.
Apparently, the Warriors received more emails demanding Abdenour's ouster as those agitating against Don Nelson, and no wonder. The numbers crunchers at the Chronicle have figured that in the last two seasons the Warriors used 96 unique starting line-ups over 164 games. This year was shaping up to be no better. Andris Biedrins was on the cusp of his annual season ending injury, while expensive free agent David Lee endured a bizarre arm infection that nearly killed him. Stuff like that just doesn't happen to other NBA teams, or at least it doesn't seem like it. They would have been better off with smelling salts and Ben-Gay.
Abdenour's departure - to take the same job at San Diego State, watch out kids! - isn't a panacea, but it's a definite step in the right direction. The few times the Warriors have been at full strength, they've been competitive, but the repeated cascading injuries quickly dashed those hopes. And, don't forget that their miracle 2007 playoff run happened during a rare window when Baron Davis was healthy and Stephen Jackson had just joined the team (and had thus not been screwed up, yet). A good medical staff won't literally send the Warriors to the playoffs, but at least the team won't be screwing up the bodies (and careers) of guys whose professional windows are narrow enough as it is.
Brick By Brick: Federal Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional
A federal judge rejected a key provision of the Obama administration's health care law as unconstitutional Monday, ruling the government cannot require people to buy insurance, in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which has been upheld by two other federal judges in Virginia and Michigan. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one filed by 20 other states in Florida.
The government had argued the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the government the power to require individuals to buy health insurance or face a penalty, a provision due to take effect in 2014.
But Hudson sided with Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli in saying the mandate overstepped the Constitution.
"This case, however, turns on atypical and uncharted applications of constitutional law interwoven with subtle political undercurrents," Hudson wrote. "The outcome of this case has significant public policy implications. And the final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court."
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Shocking News: California Health Insurance Companies Raise Rates To Comply With Government Mandates
Some health insurers are bumping up rates yet again to reflect changes mandated by the new federal health overhaul law as well as state reforms that will go into effect Jan. 1.
Blue Shield of California, for example, has sent letters informing customers with individual policies that their premiums will go up in the low single digits because of the federal law.
Some of those same policyholders also could see their rates go up as much as an additional 17.7 percent to account for a new state law that will prohibit insurers from charging women more for insurance than men.
For consumers, many of whom already have been hit this year with hefty premium increases to accommodate higher medical costs, the additional raise attributed to health reform will further strain their budgets.
While women tend to use more services in their younger years, the difference often evens out as people age.
11 Things I Learned From "Last Call"
At the Dawn: MSM Realizes Bloated Bureaucracy Will Not Cure What Ails, Ya
But why do you not also worry about similar extensions of government’s reach into areas such as health-care and finance? As with fears of terrorism, Americans’ concerns about the cost of medical care and the role of Wall Street have been cynically stoked and used by politicians to expand the role the state. Vast and bloated bureaucracies are being created to exercise arbitrary powers that are unconstitutional as well as a threat both to our freedoms and to our prosperity.
We're Gonna Make It: The Warriors Get Sold
The name "Larry Ellison" was the subject of every rumor throughout the four-month sales process. But the new owner isn't the Oracle CEO. It's Joe Lacob, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose name was rarely mentioned.
Lacob's investment group, which also features entertainment executive Peter Guber, signed a purchase agreement to buy the Oakland NBA team from Chris Cohan for a league record $450 million.
....
"We've got to address the on-court situation and try to improve it," said Lacob, a Warriors season-ticket holder who owns a partial stake in the Boston Celtics, which he will have to sell. "Our job is to turn this team into winners. We've talked about a lot of other things, but that is the bottom line."
Lacob hopes to see the Warriors make the same rebound that the Celtics did after he bought into them in 2006. The Celtics were 57-107 in the two seasons before winning the 2008 championship.
"I feel like I understand basketball. It's a tremendous passion of mine," Lacob said. "I tried to bring that to the Celtics. I was in the draft war room each year, and I'd like to think I had something to do with some of the big, bold moves that we made at the right time to get that thing turned around."
Lacob said he wouldn't talk about potential roster or front office moves with the Warriors until the sale is approved by the league - a process that sources believe will move swiftly. Until then, Lacob said, he expects that Cohan will listen to his suggestions.
Lacob "has incredible financial acumen, he lives there and he's a lifelong Warriors fan," said Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment. "He has great familiarity with basketball, he's extremely clever and he understands partnerships."
Calling In Dr. Feelgood: Medicare Cuts Go Into Effect
They tell me the doctor Medicare cuts went through. You mean the AMA, with all their sound and fury signifying nothing, failed to influence our Congressional leadership?
Gee, who knew?
Folks, this was the plan. The cuts were supposed to go through. So look at it on the bright side. Our government just saved $250 billion!
And quietly, practices will downsize their nicest employees or close all together. Many others will speed up their flight to be bought by big hospital systems - but these hospital systems will be more selective when deciding who they admit to their ranks. Inner city hospitals, struggling for survival, will look to the government for more subsidies to meet their demands for survival. Government will comply to protect themselves. Big hospitals and health systems with lots of doctor-employees will point to the decreased revenue by their doctors, tighten their belts a bit more by maintaining their months-long hiring freezes indefinitely, and fail to give those productivity bonuses to their workers as their construction contracts for their additions continue to get paid as they get ready for the "Big Wave."
? and the Obamacans
Keith Hennessey has 20 questions for White House beat reporters to ask the President tonight. They are all based in policy/politics certainly better than asking about Bill Ayers and birth certificates on the one hand and the President's "feelings" on the other: 20 Question for the President
8. You have said transparency is a top priority. Yet you are calling on Congress to pass a trillion-plus dollar spending bill before CBO has had time to estimate its full effects. In addition, your Administration is delaying release of the new economic projections and deficit estimates until after Congress votes on this massive new spending bill. Will you commit now that you will not ask Members of Congress to vote on this massive new spending commitment until your Administration has met its legal obligation to provide an updated economic forecast and deficit projection, and until CBO has provided Congress with transparent and complete analysis of the bill?
20 GOP Senators would be wise to divide these questions and begin asking them everyday. Instead, the GOP has decided to mouth words that a pollster has told them are "effective." You mean, effective at making you look like robots?
1-2 Scrush On You
Charming HMO fraudster Richard Scrushy has finally attained a sort of immortality. A judge hearing the civil suit brought by Scrushy's former company has hit him with a $2.9 Billion (with a "B") judgment. It may be the largest judgment ever entered against a single individual. Richard Scrushy, Ex-Chief of Health South, Loses Civil Suit
I'd hate to be Scrushy's attorney right now. No matter how many times you bitch about how "the judge got it wrong!," you would hate to face your client after losing on a $2.9 billion verdict.Four years ago, Richard M. Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth, walked out of a federal courthouse in Alabama and thanked God that he had been acquitted of criminal charges that he defrauded the company. But on Thursday, a state judge still found Mr. Scrushy responsible for the fraud and ordered him to pay $2.9 billion to the company’s shareholders.
In his decision, the judge, Allwin E. Horn, declared that Mr. Scrushy knew about and took part in concocting false financial statements that inflated HealthSouth’s earnings to meet Wall Street’s expectations and to buoy the stock.
The fraud ran for seven years, totaled $2.7 billion and was “remarkable and perhaps unique” in its size and scope, the judge wrote.
This being a NY Times story, they leave out some information even as they provide "just the facts:"
Mr. Scrushy had already been sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for bribing a former governor of Alabama, and he spent much of the civil trial in a holding cell away from the courtroom, lawyers said. He appeared in court only to testify in his own defense.
Yeah, that's right. But, I don't think it would have killed them to mention that the "former Alabama governor" was Don Seligman, a corrupt Democrat who accepted a $500,000 bribe from Scrushy for a seat on Alabama's hospital licensing board. Corruption in government health care?! I don't believe it! Seligman tried to weasel out of trouble by blaming a Rovian plot that was explicated on an absurd 60 Minutes segment, which I wrote about here.
There certainly was a political prosecution in this case, and the objects were Karl Rove and the Bush White House. You may recall a certain 60 Minutes report that breathlessly reported the supposed doings of Rove in orchestrating the Seligman prosecution. The whistleblower was a freakishly disturbed "Republican operative" (is there any other kind?) whose ill-fitting wig should have been a sign of her complete lack of credibility. Instead, she was hailed as a brave warrior of democracy. Where is she now? And, where are the politicians and editorial boards who once hailed her BS bravery? Well, they are now the ones in charge of our suddenly fragile nation. Funny how that worked.
Scrushy was scum, of course. But he was a sort of scum who thrives in the sweet spot where Big Business and Big Government collide. That he made his $$ in a health care related accounting fraud should be a warning to anyone contemplating increased government interference in health care. That it's very difficult to learn the truth about someone like Scrushy and his political enablers shows how determined the proponents of the "single payer" system are to make sure voters can't learn the truth about the sort of corruption that would inevitably arise under such a system.
Munchausen By Proxy
You have no doubt heard about the study purporting to show that 62% of bankruptcies are caused by out of control medical bills. It's been repeated on headlines across the country and is part of the monotonous repetition of talking points by progressive pundits. Isn't it amazing how this study (from Harvard! Oooooo.) came out just in time for our "national debate" about health care reform! Whew!
Well, Megan McCardle has taken the trouble to actually look at the study and has come to a startling conclusion - it's full of s*** and actively leaves out information that would undercut its conclusions: Elizabeth Warren and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Utterly Misleading Bankruptcy Study
Elizabeth Warren has another study out showing that medical expenses contribute to more than half of all bankruptcies--indeed, this time, it's 70%, up from the 50% she found in 2001.
Now, it is possible that this is true. The fact that it seems to disagree with every other study I've ever read that is not authored by Elizabeth Warren, and also, the self-reports of the people in her study (only about a third of whom attribute their
bankruptcy to a health problem) could just be a fluke. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong.
Yet upon closer examination, it turns out that it is not just wrong, but actively, aggressively wrong. Warren and her co-authors have obscured important and obvious facts that call the integrity of the work into serious question.
The text itself raises huge red flags. It's hard to believe that more than half of people who have been pushed into bankruptcy by a medical issue don't understand this fact. Perhaps they are not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree, but could it really be true that most people catapaulted into a financial crisis by their medical bills don't even notice that health care expenses are their main problem?
My radar is further engaged by the fact that they're implying a really astonishing surge in medical-bill-driven bankruptcies, in a healthcare environment that just didn't change all that massively
Imagine that. And, that's not the biggest problem. The Warren Study fails to mention a fact that is basic to any analysis of BK frequency: BK's have dropped precipiotously since the 2005 BK Reform:
How could steadily, moderately rising medical bills, a roughly static business and legislative environment, and a small increase in the uninsured, possibly have driven up bankruptcies so massively?
Answer: they didn't. What Warren et. al. neglect to mention is that bankruptcies fellbetween 2001 and 2007. In fact, they were cut in half. Going by the numbers Warren et. al. provide, medical bankruptcies actually fell by almost 220,000 between 2001 and 2007, a fact that they not only fail to mention, but deliberately obscure.
You should really read the whole thing. You should also read McCardle's follow-up Why Warren's New Bankruptcy Study Is So Bad, which pointedly accuses Warren of preparing a misleading study intended to create the scare-headline "62% of Bankruptcies Caused By Medical Bills," to better prep the policy battlefield for the robustly misleading health care debate we're supposedly going to have.
St. Elsewhere
The NYTimes features a story on its front page that demonstrates the perils of health care reform. The root problem is not out-of-control costs, or cost-benefit analysis, or whether the gov't should be a single-payer for all health care benefits in the US. The real danger lies in the fact that Americans simply won't put up with the rationing and wait lists that true reform would entail, and with which Canadians and Europeans must deal. Months to Live: Fighting for a Last Chance at Life
As Lou Gehrig’s disease sapped Joshua Thompson of his ability to move and speak last fall, he consistently summoned one question from within the prison of his own body. “Iplex,” he asked, in a whisper that pierced his mother’s heart. “When?”Iplex had never been tested in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the formal name for the fatal disease that had struck Joshua, 34, in late 2006. Developed for different condition and banished from the market by a patent dispute, it was not for sale to the public anywhere in the world.
But Kathy Thompson had vowed to get it for her son. On the Internet, she had found enthusiastic reviews from A.L.S. patients who had finagled a prescription for Iplex when it was available, along with speculation by leading researchers as to why it might slow the progressive paralysis that marks the disease. And for months, as she begged and bullied biotechnology companies, members of Congress, Italian doctors and federal drug regulators, she answered Joshua the same way:
“Soon,” she said. “Soon.”
People don't buy health care like they buy a car or a house. They are making a huge emotional and financial investment in a war not just against disease; but also fate, nature, and, ultimately, death. If their child, spouse, or parent is desperately ill, they will pay thousands of $$, and move heaven and earth to find even fleeting relief.
In the Thompsons' case, they are not seeking a miracle cure for ALS; they just want to alleviate Joshua's suffering and give him a bit of comfort in his last days (and theirs'. based on experiences in my family, I would say that family members who cling to the "miracle" cure - Iplex will save us! - are doing so as a coping mechanism for themselves, as much as for their sick loved one). Hollywood and the newspapers love the story of the family that seeks out and finds the miracle cure in the face of indifference from doctors, the FDA, Big Pharma, and other faceless evils. Does anyone honestly expect things will get better if health care reform ends with the feds paying for the nation's health care?
If anything, the Thompson's story shows that American health care could benefit from more freedom of choice, not less. Joshua is an adult. He understands the risks of Iplex. He wants to take it. His wife wants him to take it. His mother wants him to take it. Have everybody sign a waiver and let him take it! I understand why the FDA is very deliberate in testing and approving drugs, but that's so people can go to Wagreens without worrying that their Tylenol is going to kill them. When you have consenting adults seeking out relief, such concerns are really irrelevant.
Death By Memo
It's funny. I have been hearing about how Democrats have the wind at their backs RE: health care reform. They have a handsome charismatic president, wide congressional majorities, the firm backing of the intellectual, economic, and media elite. The GOP, we are told, is in disarray and from my vantage point that certainly is the case. What else could they have to worry about? Well, they seem to be worried about "Republican attacks" that have already caused alarm among Senate Dems. Huh? Democrats to Develop Plan to Sell Health Care
Alarmed at Republican attacks on President Obama’s health care proposals, Senate Democrats huddled Wednesday with White House officials to formulate a response.Democrats said they felt an urgent need to devise a “message” to answer Republicans assertions that Mr. Obama’s proposals could lead to “a Washington takeover of health care.”
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism coming from Republican members of Congress and Republican consultants like Frank I. Luntz, an expert on the language of politics.
Watch out! It's Frank I. Luntz! His "language of politics" factory is on-line and busy Manufacturing Consent!
Honestly, most GOP and conservative writers I've seen have been bemoaning the scattershot, unfocused nature of the Republican response to health care reform. I was afraid we would need to call the Swift Boat Veterans back for one final mission. Now, the likes of Chuck Schumer and Evan Bayh - about as steady as you can get among Dems - are growing worried about Frank Luntz's Flying Memos of Death
In the memorandum, Mr. Luntz said his polling and analysis had identified this as “the best anti-Democrat message”: “No Washington bureaucrat or health care lobbyist should stand between your family and your doctor. The Democrats want to put Washington politicians in charge of your health care.”
Mr. Luntz advised Republicans to show they “understand and empathize” with voters’ concerns about soaring health costs. “You simply must be vocally and passionately on the side of reform,” he wrote.
He urged Republicans to argue that the Democratic plan would “deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive.”
Mr. Luntz recommended this language: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a health care crisis.”
Progressives have been moaning about "Harry & Louise" since 1994, as if this was what killed ClintonCare. ClintonCare didn't pass because the voters didn't support it at the time it mattered: when it was being debated and voted on in Congress. Oh, sure, there were plenty of polls saying otherwise, and there was even that PA governor's race that supposedly "turned on" the issue of health care reform. But, when it came time to actually pass something, Democrats themselves (who had control of both houses of Congress!) couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger. All the Paul Krugman columns in creation about the "47 million uninsured," don't take into account the 250 million who ARE insured and may not want to make any drastic changes. Now, they're even better positioned than back then, and it still might not be enough.
