[Peace-discuss] [cchcc-l] Saturday's Health Reform Update & Take Action!

[Stuart Levy]

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 05:03:00PM -0500, Ron Szoke wrote:
> 
> There is no "Obamacare" bill, only one emerging from the stew of conflicting 
> agendas in congress.  I respect the opinion of some of those who oppose it, 
> but am not wholly convinced by their rhetoric -- which in some cases consists 
> merely of sneers, insults, accusations & prophecies of doom.  
> 
> I grant that the bill seems radically flawed & unsatisfactory as it stands, but I 
> support its passage in the (possibly unrealistic) hope that it can be changed to 
> something more like single-payer in the near future -- perhaps a year or two.  
> Either way, one's judgment rests on speculation about what will happen in the 
> future.  Those closest to the immediate situation -- CCHCC, CBHC, the nuns, 
> etc. -- seem overwhelmingly to support it.  Those who predict that it will 
> result in ultimate disaster are faking & bluffing -- standard fare on this list, to 
> be sure.  

Re 'seem overwhemingly to support it' -- this might sound like but isn't
'seem to support it overwhelmingly'.  They seem to be taking them as bitter pills,
being some improvement over letting them fail.  CBHC posted a long list of
problems to be addressed in the bills as they stood in early January here:

         http://www.cbhconline.org/congress-letter-010510.html

Economist Dean Baker finds some good points in the bill -- prohibiting
recission of insured people, for example.   But, he notes that it does
not address the major problem with the US health care system: cost control.
Besides the money soaked up by insurers, hundreds of billions per year
go to pharmaceutical companies, which aren't addressed here at all.
The huge price excesses that pharma companies can charge for drugs
while under patent monopoly, compared to the price they could profitably
sell them at without monopoly, leads to corruption (e.g., huge incentives
to mislead consumers about the advantages of the patented drugs).
And other good thoughts.  And some not so good, like promoting medical tourism
as competition to US providers.  All at:

      http://www.truthout.org/the-imminent-passage-health-care-reform57856

In a way it's a good thing that so much of the current bill, even if
it does pass, won't be effective for four years.  The problems of cost
and access and coverage will keep getting worse.  That means the
political pressure to address them won't go away.  We'll just have
wasted time and money, and people will have lousy fragmented health
care for that much longer.


Also liked E. J. Dionne's piece,

   "Why Democrats are Fighting for a Republican Health Care Plan"
   http://www.truthout.org/ej-dionne-why-democrats-are-fighting-a-republican-health-plan57817

e.g.
   Republican reform advocates have long called for a better insurance
   market. Our current system provides individuals with little market
   power in the purchase of health insurance. As a result, they typically
   pay exorbitant premiums. The new insurance exchanges will pool
   individuals together and give them a fighting chance at a fair shake.

   Republicans now say they hate the mandate that requires everyone to buy
   insurance.  But an individual mandate was hailed as a form of "personal
   responsibility" by no less a conservative Republican than Mitt
   Romney.  He was proud of the mandate, and also proud of the insurance
   exchange idea, known in Massachusetts as "The Health Connector" (the
   idea itself came from the conservative Heritage foundation). Romney
   had a right to be proud. As governor of Massachusetts in 2006, he
   signed a bill that is the closest thing there is to a model for what
   the Democrats are proposing.

and so on.  He's only minimally critical of the Dems for being 'less than true
to their principles', but it seems believable that the current plan would
have been a natural one for the Republicans to push through, if they had
thought health care was worth pushing as an issue at all.

> What disappoints me is the confluence of the glib & the gullible in opposing it, 
> & the notable lack of substance in their arguments.  

Yes, there's too much of that.  I do like the FireDogLake post that
Carl pointed to, which seemed to have more substance than many:

    http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/fact-sheet-the-truth-about-the-health-care-bill/
 
> Ambivalently,
> 
> -- Ron

   Stuart

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