Archive for the 'Health Care' Category

Counting commas…

I can’t even count the commas and zeros the government is talking about to fund the war in Iraq. The current physical year, August, September and October is some 196 Billion dollars and the President now wants an additional 46 Billion dollars as emergency funding to support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course this would have to by-pass the normal funding channels, which I highly doubt the Democrats (and many Republicans) will support that “open” checkbook. Also, please keep in mind the National debt – How many Trillion dollars?

The bottom line is too many commas and too many zeros for any average person to count or understand the enormity of $$$ being spent to fight what? Our freedom? It surely isn’t yours or mine.

The question to any of the hopeful candidates running for President would be – When and how would you stop all of this bloodletting?

Keep in mind that with this much money we could be solving a lot of families without insurance to insure their kids. With this much money we could have the resources needed to fight the raging fires throughout the United States. We could use this money to rebuild the New Orleans area from the throngs of Katrina. Need one go on?

The time is NOW my friends. We cannot let this to continue with no end in sight. We must take care of number one (us) before we can even begin to think about number 2, 3, 4.

Shane rightly came over to my place and held my feet to the fire regarding my chip shot (some may call it a cheap shot) at the methods used by the Democrats to put a human face on the SCHIP debate. Now that the initial evaluation is over, and now that we’re mostly done peeing on each other’s legs, I’m left wondering what the end result of all of this will be.

The President did what he promised he would do with his veto pen, and Congress doesn’t appear to have enough votes for an override. This was all predetermined, of course, because the President had promised to veto the legislation to begin with. Knowing this, I wonder why the legislation moved ahead at all in the form that it was in. Was it just a political statement? Was there aversion to compromise simply to draw attention to the debate? I’d say yes, but I’d also add that there is nothing wrong with highlighting policy differences with the neon light of brinkmanship as long as something good comes out of it.
In that vein, I stumbled upon this from The Modesto Bee that gives a pretty thoughtful (but brief) response on how a compromise could still be reached. The statement from the article that jumped out at me drove home the question I ask in my title; now what?

This [compromise would give] Democrats one big bold action they can tell voters their Congress achieved. Then again, Democrats may want to avoid a compromise so they can tell voters next year to blame Bush and Republicans for the fact that children remain uninsured.

Congress has made its point, and the President has made his. Now we’ll see if the players actually want to do something about the issue, and our own Mr. Baucus will be sitting center stage.

Remember the days when President Bush referred to himself as a ‘compassionate conservative’?  Perhaps not; it seems quite a while since the President last acted in a manner either compassionate or conservative.

Well, he had his chance yesterday, to prove that notion wrong, by signing the SCHIP expansion into law.  But the President once against failed to live up to his once-popular moniker; issuing his fourth veto to block the bill.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, in a confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health insurance.

Why is this veto neither compassionate or conservative?  Well, it isn’t compassionate because the President’s actions halted a bipartisan effort to expand health insurance for children, and it isn’t conservative because the expansion wouldn’t have raised federal spending; it was setup to pay for itself.

It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack.

Yet what was one of the big reasons the President gave for his veto?

The president had promised to veto it, saying the Democratic bill was too costly

Yeah, our President: compassionate and conservative!  Is anyone proud?

I grow weary of discussions on Iraq and the war on terror. I am not changing anyone’s mind and neither are you. How many people have died of terror attacks in the United states in the last year? The answer is zero. How many people have died from a lac of healthcare in this country in the last year? The answer is “alot”.

The most credible estimate of the number of people in the United States who have died because of lack of medical care was provided by a study carried out by Professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler (New England Journal of Medicine 336, no. 11 [1997]). They concluded that almost 100,000 people died in the United States each year because of lack of needed care

So, maybe that isn’t such a big deal to you, but it is to me and I would like to see something happen to change that. Our preferred method of promoting change in this country comes through elections. I thought it might be interesting to survey the major presidential candidates ‘Issues’ section on their websites to see what they are saying in their own words about health care.

Democratic Candidates

Senator Barack Obama
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1. Obama’s Plan to Cover the Uninsured. Obama will create a new national health plan to allow individuals without access to affordable insurance coverage to buy coverage similar to that available to members of Congress…
2. National Health Insurance Exchange. Obama will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase private insurance…
3. Employer Contribution. Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt.
4. Mandatory Coverage of Children. Obama will require that all children have health care coverage.
5. Expansion of Medicaid and SCHIP. Obama will expand eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
6. Flexibility for State Plans. Obama’s plan allows states to continue innovating on health care reform.

Obama’s plan actually goes much more in depth, by doing things like lowering costs by increasing competition in the insurance and drug markets, investment in electronic health information technology systems, reducing costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees. All in all, the plan makes some sense to me and is worth looking further into.

Senator Hillary Clinton:
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1. A Groundbreaking National Prevention Initiative to Reduce the Incidence of Such Diseases as Diabetes and Cancer that Impose Huge Human and Financial Costs
2. Institute a New “Paperless” Health Information Technology System
3. Transform Care of Today’s Chronically Ill Population to Improve Outcomes and Decrease Costs
4. Ending Insurance Discrimination to Help Reduce Administrative Costs
5. Create an Independent “Best Practices” Institute to Empower Consumers, Providers and Health Plans to Make the Right Care Choices
6. Implement Smart Purchasing Initiatives to Constrain Excess Prescription Drug and Managed Care Expenditures
7. Put in Place Common-Sense Medical Malpractice

So, while Hillary’s website says a lot about reducing healthcare costs, a very positive thing, but not a lot about assuring that American’s have the coverage they need. In truth, I don’t see a lot of substance here compared to the other front runners.

Senator John Edwards:
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* Requiring businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.
* Making insurance affordable by creating new tax credits, expanding Medicaid and SCHIP, reforming insurance laws, and taking innovative steps to contain health care costs.
* Creating regional “Health Care Markets” to let every American share the bargaining power to purchase an affordable, high-quality health plan, increase choices among insurance plans, and cut costs for businesses offering insurance.
* Once these steps have been taken, requiring all American residents to get insurance.
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Securing universal healthcare for every American will require the active involvement of millions of Americans.

So, Edwards plan actually moves us towards universal healthcare. There is room to argue on the ‘requirement’ basis (Yes Craig, I was wrong on that, it does look like he is proposing a requirement). I think that point should be up for discussion. However, consider why social security works: everyone is required to participate.

Governor Bil Richards

*100% Coverage — with Real Choices and No New Bureaucracies
*Cost: Affordable Coverage through Shared Responsibility; No New Taxes
*Savings: $110 billion per year
*Care: Improving Quality of Care for all Americans

…by promoting affordable choices of coverage, emphasizing prevention and personal responsibility, spurring the spread of new technologies, cutting administrative overhead, and minimizing bureaucracy, we’ll create verifiable cost savings that offset the needed investments and coverage expansions. That’s why I can promise Americans universal — and better — health care without increased taxes.

Maybe. I am not sure that this is a real plan as much as a idea. I would like to see it further developed.

Republican Candidates

Senator Fred Thompson
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Fred Thompson doesn’t have any ‘issues’ up at his website, but you can buy ‘Fred Stuff’ like buttons, Fred Packs and Fred Gear. He also hasn’t taken part in any debate, so we really don’t have any information in ‘his own words’. Apparently, he doesn’t think that those types of things are important to Republican voters.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani
*Expand Choice Through Tax Code Reform
…an income exclusion of up to $15,000 for those without employer coverage to make insurance more affordable.
*Help Low-Income Individuals and Families Secure Health Insurance
…a Health Insurance Credit to low-income Americans that can be coupled with other revenue sources such as Medicaid and employer contributions to make coverage more affordable to millions of the uninsured.
*Reform the Medical Liability Legal System
…Rudy’s commitment to end frivolous lawsuits without limiting compensation for real economic loss is key to comprehensive health care reform.
*Save Lives and Reduce Costs by Streamlining the FDA Process
…Rudy will bring greater accountability and efficiency to the evaluation process for new drugs by ensuring that government regulation does not delay new cures or needlessly cost lives.
*Improve and Expand Health Savings Accounts
…Rudy will expand access to these accounts by simplifying the rules and regulations so that insurance coverage will meet the health care goals of individuals and families.

In all fairness, there is some good stuff in here, what I don’t see though is health care for children. In fact the whole page only references them in relation to obesity. All children deserve health care. In my mind, this only addresses a few of the symptoms of our health care crisis but ignores the root causes.

Mitt Romney

The health of our nation can be improved by extending health insurance to all Americans, not through a government program or new taxes, but through market reforms.

That’s it? One sentence is all this issue gets? In the words of Don: Vapid Twit. Seriously, I have to ask, aren’t market reforms a government solution? If market reforms would work, why haven’t they already?

John McCain

Yep, that’s right. John McCain at least has an issues page, but he doesn’t think that health care is an important enough issue to put there.

Conclusion

I see some pretty clear differences in the candidates from both sides. On the one hand, most of the leading Democratic candidates seem to support the idea that the American health care system needs reform. On the other hand, most of the leading Republican candidates seem to think that the system is just fine.

Consider that for a moment. Nine out of ten American think that the American health care system needs at least fundamental changes, but the Republican candidates don’t see it that way, showing that they are pandering to the far-right extremist of America. It is time that they look back at the middle of America, where 62% of American’s would prefer universal health care to the current system.

The choice here is clear.