Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[SamIam]

Classic, if I read you wrong, I apologize. There has been quite a bit of vitriol in this thread, and I thought you were just egging me on. My bad.

[TheMercenary]

Economist Was Under Contract With HHS While Touting Health Reform Bill
By Judson Berger
- FOXNews.com

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the leading academic defenders of health care reform, is taking heat for failing to disclose consistently that he was under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services while he was touting the Democrats' health proposals the media.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...outing-reform/

[glatt]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

failing to disclose consistently

Nice qualifier there. I didn't read the Faux News article, for obvious reasons, but you have to admit that he only has to not mention it one time out of a thousand, and they can still make this accusation. "well, he may have disclosed it, but he wasn't consistent."

[classicman]

Weird Science: Why Politicians and Pundits Cling to the "Cadillac Tax" Idea

The theory behind the "Cadillac tax" on health plans is little more than wishful thinking based on dubious research. Advocates believe that forcing employers to cut benefits will lead to cheaper, better care. That's like preventing rain by outlawing umbrellas. Yet the President has reversed his campaign opposition to the tax and now supports it. John Kerry, who I respect, is defending it too.(1) Why?

Because they're poorly served by their advisors, and by pundits who cling to the idea in the face of new evidence. Although the Washington Post got it right, too many analysts and journalists are beholden to ideas that Art Levine rightly dubbed "voodoo economics for the punditocracy."

Why do President Obama and his advisors keep touting the tax? And why do journalists like David Leonhardt of the New York Times keep asserting that "health economists" think it's a good idea? Uwe Reinhardt - the most respected health economist in the country - said the idea that "with high cost-sharing, patients will do the only legitimate ... cost-benefit calculus ... surely is nonsense."

The best-known advocate for the tax is MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who was hyping it as recently as a week ago, without mentioning new and contradictory data.

How can a "voice of realism" claim that this is "a tax that's not a tax," one that affects "generous" plans? That statement was published only nineteen days after a paper in the influential journal Health Affairs disproved it. Using actual benefits data, the authors showed the tax would not target "generous" plans. Instead it would unfairly affect plans whose enrollees were older, worked in the wrong industry, or lived in an area where treatment costs are high. A leading actuary came to a similar conclusion.

Gruber also claimed that the money employers save (by slashing benefits to avoid the tax) would be returned to workers as wages or other compensation. But two leading health benefits firms (2) had already published surveys in which the vast majority of employers polled insisted they would do no such thing.
There is a simple truth in the world of ideas: Theories can be beautiful. Reality can be ugly.

Link
Very good article that expresses many of the valid concerns of SOME people who are not exactly enamored with the currently proposed reform. Again, not just bashing, but these are some of the things that need to be addressed by those voting on the bills. I wonder how many of them got this type of info in the "summary" they read.

[Happy Monkey]

Theories can be beautiful. Reality can be ugly.

It's not a particularly pretty theory.

[classicman]

I agree, actually its a rather poorly constructed one . . . flimsy at best.

Originally Posted by classicman

Weird Science: Why Politicians and Pundits Cling to the "Cadillac Tax" Idea

Link
Very good article that expresses many of the valid concerns of SOME people who are not exactly enamored with the currently proposed reform. Again, not just bashing, but these are some of the things that need to be addressed by those voting on the bills. I wonder how many of them got this type of info in the "summary" they read.

The issue of concern here is the funding mechanism so I think it is a stretch to project it beyond that unless that is your sole reason for opposing the overall substance of the reform initiative.

In any case, it appears that a compromise is in the works.

It would raise the level at which the excise tax on employers with health insurance plans with premiums of at least $8,500 for individuals/$23,000 family kicks in, which is Senate version, to something over $10-12K/ $25K and would index it so it would rise even higher over time AND would also include a modification of the House funding plan as well, but instead of the general 5% excise tax on persons with income over $500K individual/$1 million couple, it would impose a 1% FICA tax increase on income over $250K (who currently pay 0% on income over $100K)

Its called compromise and its not always pretty and it never will please everyone.

But in the words of Mick Jagger:

"You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need"

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

Nice qualifier there. I didn't read the Faux News article, for obvious reasons, but you have to admit that he only has to not mention it one time out of a thousand, and they can still make this accusation. "well, he may have disclosed it, but he wasn't consistent."

Eh... If you are speaking as an economist for your views then you have a professional obligation to say your are on the payroll. Just because it comes from Fox does not change the facts.

Wasn't there some blow up a few years ago over so called "reporters" who were on the White House payroll supporting their policy in news print is a supposed "un-biased" roll?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

The issue of concern here is the funding mechanism so I think it is a stretch to project it beyond that unless that is your sole reason for opposing the overall substance of the reform initiative.

In any case, it appears that a compromise is in the works.

It would raise the level at which the excise tax on employers with health insurance plans with premiums of at least $8,500 for individuals/$23,000 family kicks in, which is Senate version, to something over $10-12K/ $25K and would index it so it would rise even higher over time AND would also include a modification of the House funding plan as well, but instead of the general 5% excise tax on persons with income over $500K individual/$1 million couple, it would impose a 1% FICA tax increase on income over $250K (who currently pay 0% on income over $100K)

Its called compromise and its not always pretty and it never will please everyone.

But in the words of Mick Jagger:

"You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need"

Spend, spend, spend, spend, spin, and tax. That does not make it right or acceptable.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

[ I wonder how many of them got this type of info in the "summary" they read.

They never did read the Bill.

Why read it when the Insurance Companies wrote. They know what it says. Follow the money in the next election.

[TheMercenary]

Health interest groups get fuzzy financing
Firms accused of ‘money laundering their PR’; unions contribute millions

The compressed time frame gives outside groups one more chance to attempt to derail the legislation or influence it to their advantage. But in many cases, it is hard to tell where their money is coming from.

The Institute for Liberty, for example, was a one-man conservative interest group with a Virginia post office box and less than $25,000 in revenue in 2008. Now, the organization has a Web site, a downtown Washington office and a $1 million advocacy campaign opposing President Obama's health-care plans.

Andrew Langer, the group's president, said the organization receives no funding from health-care firms but declined to provide details. "This year has been really serendipitous for us," he said. "But we don't talk about specific donors."

The biggest spenders in the health-care debate are well-known Washington veterans with clear constituencies, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is representing corporate titans who are against reform, and a well-organized network of labor organizations pushing for the legislation. Health Care for America Now, for example, is a consortium of unions and liberal groups that expects to spend $42 million on its wide-ranging pro-reform campaign.

But outside such established interest groups is a significant but more elusive collection of organizations, many of them particularly energized in opposition to Democratic health-care reform efforts. Most are organized as nonprofits, meaning they do not have to reveal many financial details beyond basic revenue and expenses. Some are bankrolled by charitable foundations with a political bent or by industries with a financial stake in the debate; nearly all use names that seem designed to obscure their origins.

'Money laundering their PR'
The Partnership to Improve Patient Care, for example, headed by former congressman Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), was formed by the drug industry in November 2008 to lobby against binding government effectiveness studies, which could be used to determine what insurance companies must cover. The American Council on Science and Health is an industry-friendly group whose board member Betsy McCaughey helped set off the "death panels" frenzy last year.

"It's sort of like money-laundering their PR," said Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal-leaning group that runs a Web site called PRWatch.org. "A lot of these groups are heavily funded by corporations and then don't reveal it. They try to imply that they are funded primarily by individuals, but that's clearly not the case."

The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) is a New York-based think tank headed by Peter Pitts, a former Food and Drug Administration official who appears frequently on newscasts condemning Democratic health-care proposals. CMPI is an offshoot of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, which has received foundation grants over the years from Philip Morris, Pfizer and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to public records.

While serving as president of CMPI, Pitts also works as the global health-care chief at Porter Novelli, a New York public relations firm whose clients include Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth and Pfizer. He acknowledges that CMPI also receives money from the pharmaceutical industry, which is supporting reform legislation in exchange for a White House promise to limit cuts.

Pitts said he sees no conflict between his two roles, saying the jobs "are completely separate." Tax filings show that Pitts earned a $250,000 salary from CMPI in 2007, when he also headed another firm's global health-care practice.

"We support health-care reform, we just want to do it appropriately," Pitts said of CMPI. "Sometimes it puts us in the same camp as pharmaceutical companies; sometimes it doesn't."

continues
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34742993...shington_post/

[SamIam]

Here are two tidbits I gleaned while perusing the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ site.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2996

The first addresses the concern that insurance companies will simply charge higher premiums if forced to cover people with pre-existing conditions

Expending health reform legislation would create a system of health insurance marketplaces, called exchanges, that would offer a range of competing private health insurance plans to individuals who lack access to employer-sponsored insurance as well as to small businesses. Plans would not be allowed to turn people away, charge higher rates because of their health status, or deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. Plans would have to meet certain minimum benefit standards, including a limit on the maximum out-of-pocket charges that an enrollee would have to pay in any year. Low-income people would receive a tax credit that would allow them to purchase a plan at an affordable price and cost-sharing subsidies to hold down their out-of-pocket costs.

The second mentions a benefit that some high income households may not have considered. The higher payroll tax will not only cover certain seniors, but, also those with disabilities. From personal experience I can tell you that getting assistance for dealing with many disabilities is like pulling an elephant’s teeth.

Increasing the Medicare payroll tax on high-wage earners would represent a sound and well-targeted way of paying for health reform. It would also improve the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund and thereby strengthen this critical program, which provides health coverage for 46 million seniors and persons with disabilities.

[SamIam]

OK, this is anecdotal, but it makes me mad as hell, and it shows what's wrong with our medical system yet one more time.

I have two wonderful friends in their late 50's. They are far from wealthy, but they were getting by. Jobs are hard to get in this rural, end of the world part of Colorado. The husband, "Joe," managed to land work with the forest service but he ends up getting laid off every winter for a few months - he does get unemployment from them. He also works odd jobs where he can. His wife, "Judy" was a prep cook at a restaurant here in town. They help other peope all they can, even though their budget is limited and their home is just a small trailer.

Well, Judy just got diagnosed with emphysema. Since Joe is only seasonal at the Forest Service, it doesn't give him health insurance. Judy had limited insurance at her job, but she had to quit because she must now use a portable oxygen tank and can't be near a stove. The cost of an oxygen tank is prohibitive for them in their situation. The O2 company offered them a "deal" - a used tank which they can have for only $300.00. Never mind how they are going to pay for Judy's other treatment for her illness.

I told Judy to apply for disability. To me that looks like the only solution to her problem. Disability isn't wonderful, but it will give her a small income each month, and most importantly, access to medicare.

There is something dreadfully wrong with a system that chews people like these two up and spits them out. They deserve so much more. They have worked hard all their lives, and this is what they get? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I don't know if the new health care reform will help people like Joe and Judy or not, but dammit, it should.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But Sam, if they had become lawyers or investment bankers they wouldn't be in this fix. Or they could have chosen richer parents.

[classicman]

. . . or gone into politics.

Srsly, sorry to hear of yet another tale of how the system is broken. It's gonna get better - certainly can't get worse, I hope.