Thanks for staying on top of this Jon.

It really is refreshing to know I can look here to find out info that I’m just not going to find out from the traditional sources (TV, NPR, etc.)

Thanks so much.

It’s looking increasingly likely Reid is slamming his foot on the gas in order to pass something and sell out the people. But one more positive explanation could be that Reid is pretty sure annual caps have broad popularity and will be in the final conference bill. So right now he’s just playing with numbers to try to accomplish a miracle and get 60 votes for a jerry-rigged bill. Since he understands this bill will have no chance of passing conference, he’s just trying to get something through the Senate so the real work can begin in conference. Note, as I said, this is an optimistic reading.

So now the CBO is working for the insurance industry too.

I wonder how they deliver the bribes to Douglas Elmendorf?

Or does he just have the promise of a nice 7 figure “job” waiting for him when he’s done at the CBO?

That is a lot of suffering to cause for a few dollars off premiums and some minor PR.

Jon,

You say that Reid’s goal is to make premiums for individuals appear cheaper.

Seems like Reid’s concern is to bring the overall price tag of this version more in line with what the CBO has said about the others – the House bill, the Senate HELP Committe bill, and the Senate Finance Committe bill.

All the extra money that will go to private insurers’ profits has to be covered over somehow. Why not reduce the quality of the coverage?

This is probably a set-up so that obama can ride in like a knight in shining armor and keep ONE of his campaign promises to not limit annual or lifetime costs. Then, the dumbass obamabots and demo-zombie idiots will cheer … they want to be fooled, they want to believe.

So the rahmbama team, through their conduit reid, who is probably heavily backstopped into a huge paying corporate or lobbying job should he lose his election, threaten to take away something they promised. Then they’ll give it back and expect an ovation … and this little bit of rahm-orchestrated kabuki theatre will probably get it from the dumbass liberals that can’t see obama for the corporate whore that he is.

Z

You can never be cynical enough about the rahmbama team …

Z

Hell, they’re doing the same shit with women reproductive rights … threaten to take away something and then give it back to a big moronic applause.

Z

Not sure about you, but all of the other types of insurance I have ever bought are either a) defined benefit (life insurance) or b) have a stated benefit limit (just about everything else).

Another great catch. One reason premiums would not go “through the roof” – owing to lack of a cap, as opposed to credit card issuer-like greed – is because insurance contracts are annual, not permanent for the life of the insured.

Prohibiting a cap would affect annual medical payments, which, for a small percentage of insureds, would be much higher. Over time, this would eat into insuresters profits, but not lethally. But this is war and they oppose any concession to their opposition, including the legitimacy of regulating insuresters in the first place.

What prohibiting a cap does highlight, though, is that insuresters profits are driven by denying care, just as credit card issuers’ profits are driven by forcing good and bad risks alike to pay default rates of interest, fees and penalties. Hence, the return of the cap.

Annual caps are one way insuresters do this. Exclusions for “pre-existing conditions” and rescission for failure to disclose minor, unrelated ailments are other gimmicks. The latter is especially fraudulent. It’s like voiding a car manufacturer’s warranty to fix a faulty engine because the owner installed after-market hubcaps. That’s illegal in the buying and selling of goods, but not, apparently, in insuring the care of human lives.

There wasn’t any big moronic applause around here.

No matter what legislation ends up on Obama’s desk, it will never provide unlimited healthcare for anyone, anytime. Every healthcare program [from the best in Europe to our own] necessarily rations treatments in one way or another. It has to. If there was literally no end to how much could be spent per person to bring him or her the optimal health care there would be little money left over for anything else.

The key quandary then is how to balance resources with results so as to achieve the greatest balance for the greatest number of people.

We know the rich and powerful will always find ways to get everything and anything they need—in and out of the healthcare market.

But what about the rest of us? Where are the lines to be drawn, such that those who dispense the healthcare, aren’t able to buy the government policy that sustains their pecuniary interests over and above the health needs of those they peddle it to.

And more to the point, is healthcare something a civilized nation allows to be “peddeled” at all?

Another thing that re-imposing annual or lifetime caps succeeds in doing is to avoid addressing the exorbitant prices drugsters are allowed in this country to charge for drugs, especially so-called biologics. Specialist and maintenance drugs for chronic illnesses are a major reason insureds run into the brick wall of coverage caps.

Re-imposing a cap is a legislative godsend: it puts off paying the piper for one more election.

Jury rigged. That’s how I learnt the phrase.

And you ASSUME there will BE a conference? Between House and Senate? Cuz there’s no conference in Senate coming. CBO scores Harry’s send, they vote it’s over.

Now what happens in House, is fully undefined to me, by anyone, so far . . . I barely understand ping pong, and NO one’s explained how the House gets ram rodded to sign off on Senate bill as will be presented . . . . no one with procedural knowledge has answered my question.

How does this shit work? Who in House and HOW can they stop debate, and force a vote, or bypass a House vote for a committee decision to ACCEPT the Senate bill as presented?

So, huh, you reading all I’m reading?

And I’m not an expert in these matters . . . . but I got questions that aren’t answered . . . till they are, most posits are off the mark.

Who in House and HOW can they stop debate, and force a vote, or bypass a House vote for a committee decision to ACCEPT the Senate bill as presented?

They do need a vote. The house can have a Manager’s Amendment, which modifies the House language to match the Senate, and if the House approved, it’s done.

So even in the ping-pong scenario, the House Progressive Caucus still has to vote; meaning they can have a spine and demand changes to this madness, or cave.

George,

You answered your own question – healthcare is rationed in Europe. Please consider the British version, its called NICE.

Please also recall President Obama advising the ‘aged’ will be provided with pills for the pain.

But, then again maybe the folks in hopenhagen will conjure up some magic fairy dust.

I’m not saying there was …

Z

Healthcare is being rationed here too.

We’re trying to make it as little rationed as possible.

Ditto!

The crimp in the plan is that both House and Senate versions do zero to bend the cost curve.

Note, as I said, this is an optimistic reading.

To say the least. But you’re known for that…

OFG – take a close look at that moniker you responded to. Just couldn’t fit “America” in; it’s a classic TeaBagger protest sign:

One
Big
Assed
Mistake
America

As Larue says, *SetMouseToScroll*

Oh, I know. I called him out on it yesterday, telling him he forgot “america” at the end of his name.

But I wasn’t gonna leave that “health care is rationed in Europe” comment alone, since that sometimes has legs with “reasonable” people. We need to make all understand that it’s being rationed here, too, right now.

But I’ll skip responding to him anymore. Usually, I’m the one asking folks to scroll. The “rationed” comment got me to reply. My bad.

Never heard of jury-rigged, but jerry-rigged is the common term. Did you know gerrymandered refers to a Gov. Gerry who carved up districts like a sala”mander”?

Speaking of language fun…the House will exert its will on this no-matter what. Whether you call it conference, pre-conference, or ping pong, it’s basically the same rose by a different name. Because the most important thing is preventing 3 or more House Democrats from defecting, which will be very hard and is the reason that the House will have as much leverage as the Senate, broadly speaking.

How much of the national income do you think should be spent on healthcare?

Well at least in the comment section, FDL is packed with diehard pessimists. Not skeptics or realists, but fundamentalist, head-in-the-sand pessimists. So I never mind erring on the side of optimism to balance things out. Believe me I’ll have no problem becoming a pessimist once it becomes clear that Obama’s not trying do the job we hired him to do, which is becoming more of a possibility but we’re definitely not there yet.

It’s a good idea to respond to comments like that, IMO. Lots more people read blogs than post on them, so your words are being read by many who might learn something.

I don’t have an amount or a percentage of GDP, but regardless of whatever number that needs to be, the fact is whatever ‘rationing’ is necessary should be done in a fair, just, and equitable manner, treating everyone the same. Not like it’s done now where the rationing is based on class (level of income).

FDL is packed with diehard pessimists

No it’s not. People here have many views; the ones you seem to be referring to just look at what is happening, not what they hope for.

I repeat from yesterday: Why are you so mesmerized by Obama?

Full disclosure: I did a lot of work for his campaign. I still think he can be influenced.

Don’t feel bad. Sometimes my fingers just can’t stay away from the keyboard.

Also, by supporting a system that makes more dollars go to actual healthcare rather than to administrative costs and profits, we limit the amount of rationing necessary. This is why we support single payer, because with it, administrative costs can be lowered to single digits like it is with Medicare versus the approximately 1/3 of dollars in private plans.

The amount of waste in the system because of hundreds of different insurance companies with hundreds of different rules and forms and amounts is easily in the billions of dollars annually. And there’s no moral justification whatsoever for a middleman profit to be made off merely paying the bills, which is what insurance companies do.

I like Obama because he may not be perfect and he may hold an office that is a lot weaker Constitutionally than most of us want to admit, but he’s easily the best mainstream politician in 40 years, and I think he’ll make the next 40 years much different. Probably the same reasons you liked and worked for him, but you may have gotten so absorbed by the campaign that you deluded yourself about who he is and are now feeling the ramifications. Don’t blame yourself, this was part of the goal of the branding of Obama, as Naomi Klein explained: he has barely done anything in office that contradicted what he said on the campaign trail, but the emotions he raised encouraged some people to start reading into him things that he never said, which might include you.

“FDL is packed with diehard pessimists.”

Maybe they have a very good reason not to fall into the vat of pablum that is the DNC/DLC/Obama line of Hope and Change Status quo forevah!

People do in the end learn the wisdom of admitting: ‘Fool me — you can’t get fooled again!’

He specifically said, on more than one occasion, that he would restore the rule of law to the White House. Yet he has abandoned that specific pledge with respect to holding those that broke the law accountable, which would be a return to the rule of law. If no one is accountable for breaking the law, then there is no law.

Also, he was very specific on closing GITMO as well as several other specific issues. This crap that we’ve somehow deluded ourselves over what he is is just that, crap. And please don’t start with blaming Congress over GITMO. Funny, I don’t recall Bush getting Congress’ approval before opening it up.

But keep on spewing it if you like. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s crap.

Obama, MLK Day, 2008

It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

FDL might want to consider helping to organize support groups for these T-baggers, carrying signs like: ‘Keep your hands off my Medicare, I want my kids to have it Now!’

Anyone have good ideas for framing the issue as to frame the T-baggers?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/ration-pageant-by-digby-this-is-lovely.html

Please don’t feed the trolls. I know they look cute at first..and they’re soooo hungry.

‘mikesong’ comes from a long line of political pragmatists cast in the image of Machiavelli. Proud of it, too.

you couldn’t have cited a worse example than Gitmo. One of Obama’s biggest risks so far was keeping his campaign pledge to try to end it despite Congress’s overwhelming objections. You need to do more reading.

Obama’s DOJ defending John Yoo, – like that one better?

I wish Obama was more Machiavellian – the man’s got the being loved part down pat, but the more important being feared part…not so much.

I wasn’t commenting on whether it was good policy or not, I was commenting on that was a specific item of his campaign that he violated, in response to your claim that he “he has barely done anything in office that contradicted what he said on the campaign trail.” I named two, and I could name others, but it’s clear to me that you’re either a paid supporter, or have some other motive in trying to get the message out that Obama really isn’t doing that badly.

Perhaps you could try reading the post before responding.

Machiavelli?? More like Polyanna, IMO.

i wasn’t commenting on the policy merits either, but whether he’s sticking to his word from the campaign on Gitmo, which he is, despite near unanimous political opposition.

Yeah right, – love just oozing wherever I look.

Re mikesong:

Perhaps you could try reading the post before responding.

Hard to do when you’re mesmerized. Or maybe he is getting paid, but somehow I doubt it (just a hunch).

Which of the other promises and statements from any of the other speeches or debate transcripts would you like to ignore?

I do admit though, your talent for cherry picking and slipperiness as regards what you care to debate is quite admirable.

Hugh, I believe, has a current list of O’s broken promises. Anyone know how to access it?

Funny, I wake up everyday and GITMO is still carrying on, same as always, despite the fact that he signed an Executive Order 10 months ago.

But, maybe for some, if a politician says he’s going to do something, then that’s the same as doing it. Because right now, that’s all we’ve got. Is him saying he’s closing it.

Would you like to wager on whether it’s closed by this time next year?

Find any recent comment of Hugh’s. Click on his name and it takes you to his list.

he has barely done anything in office that contradicted what he said on the campaign trail,

Man, do you not pay attention! Or maybe this is deliberate obfuscation? Just read a few of the replies to you above, for starters. There is lots more as well.

the emotions he raised encouraged some people to start reading into him things that he never said, which might include you.

Not me. Clear he was pretty mainstream, and he flip-flopped on FISA during the campaign. I expected to be disappointed in him, I’ve been there before, and I was right, unfortunately. But he does have a way of making people think he will do things that in fact he won’t. You fall in that category.

I am certain that there are more websites like these (opposition?), and I’d Imagine that lists can be found on left leaning sites as well.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/promise-broken/

Thanks, Mr. Canfield!

Re mikesong:

I do admit though, your talent for cherry picking and slipperiness as regards what you care to debate is quite admirable.

But is it a talent or a delusion? Not clear to me.

admirable or impressive?

no comprende, campadre

interesting site. you may want to check out their “top 25″ promises Obama made:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/politifacts-top-promises/
Of those top 25, 1 was broken, 1 is stalled, and the rest are either in the works or done. Sounds pretty good to me.

tan poco, chefe.

Instead of linking to some silly site, why don’t you address the specific points people mentioned? I’m really starting to think that you are not serious. You appear to be degenerating into above-average parroting of Obama worship–ie a lot of what you say sounds good, but in fact it’s just telling us to ignore what he’s done and trust in our Great Leader.

mikesong,

sorry ass looking list of accomplishments.

hey it’s your site that you pointed to, i just checked it out. can you see beyond your nose with those blinders?

As we head into the weekend, let us all take ..comfort in the ‘comforting’ words of the Senate Majority Leader of the United States to the cold and uninsured on the status of his health care bill: “I’m comfortable.”

Well isn’t HE fu**ing special.

Right, out of the Top 25 promises, 1 kept, and that looks good to you.

Hey, don’t shoot me, shoot yourself; I didn’t make any fucking restrictions on your sourcing.

the one that progressive are so enamored off, none the less: 2 brigades to Afghanistan! whoopee!

My very point is that health care is rationed everywhere. It’s just that in America [and for all too many] the “ration cards” from the government read, “your on your own.”

Children too if their parents can’t afford it. About one in eight kids lack health insurance in the so-called “greatest country of earth”.

It is a moral disgrace, of course.

No matter what program is passed there will always be tragedies. There are just too many ways God created the human body to break down—and too few miracles to go around not to have those.

What it comes down to then is mere mortals coming up with a way to dispense healthcare so that the least number of tragedies are recorded. You can do that from Wall Street or from a government of, by and for the people [well, the most people]. When they become virtually interchangable, however, the tragedies just mount and mount and mount.

And then those God fearing Christian Republicans [and Wall Street Democrats] will go to church on Sunday and thank the Lord they were made in His imagine.

Without even a trace of irony, mind you.

That would be 5 kept, not 1, according to the site. And the rest are in the works. Were you under the impression that if we elected Obama he’d become an all-powerful dictator? I’m going to go have a nice weekend.

“I’m going to go have a nice weekend.”

27 million unemployed Americans are telling each other just that thing, as are Obama’s Banksters. One happy and oh so fortunate Obama family!

FDL is packed with diehard pessimists

Sometimes pessimism is just the most reasonable point of view.

And sometimes a pessimistic perspective [and all it can ever be is a particular existential vantage point, right?] is really just a reflection of emotional and psychological despair over the way things seem to be going. Intertwined, of course, with another reasonable assessment about whether anything substantive will be done about it.

It’s a potent combination at times, truly.

Where pessimism becomes downright dangerous though is when it is used to prosletize other pessimists. Pessimism, enveloped by more and more people, in other words. Then it can become a kind of self-fulfilling phrophecy. The more people you convince that things are hopeless the more people will stop trying to change it. Then around and around it goes.

You have to learn when to keep it to yourself, I suppose.

On thing about mikesong. He is clearly off the mark, but his posts have enough to them to get some very good responses (no I’m not thinking about mine).

Since lots more people lurk than post, the responses have an effect way beyond the discussion itself, ie they can help many people understand what is going on re Obama. So mikesong may be shooting himself, in a backhanded kind of way…

I suppose the exact same danger would apply to optimists, and the self proclaimed realists.

Bye mikesong! Bring back some decent rebuttals after you rest up!

Don’t hold your breath.

Obama, MLK Day, 2008

It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms

And yet anyone can clearly see this is precisely what he and the Democratic Congress have done. Worse then that, they have virtually allowed the healthcare industry to do what Dick Cheney allow the energy industry to do—write their own ticket.

The bitterness I feel towards Obama revolves around an intuitive sense that he never really had any intention whatsoever to change the way things work in Washington. Over at Huffington Post yesterday they had a video of Matt Taibbi succinctly outlining the trajectory Obama took vis a vis Wall Street once hewas enscounced in office.

Go ingest it. Then try to argue Obama was merely sucked into a situation he had little control over.

Obama Is Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commision down to his bones. I really believe that. He was a “populist” fraud from the get-go. He is the American ruling class embodied.

But, sure, I could still be wrong about that. There could still be an intention to fulfill his promises by way of a trajectory I’m just not seeing clearly.

You think?

There could still be an intention to fulfill his promises by way of a trajectory I’m just not seeing clearly.

More likely he is (1) too cautious, (2) a bit overwhelmed with all the things coming at him, and (3) too in love with his “bipartisanship” ideas. My take, anyway, YMMV.

Have a good weekend.

Hope you understand that, at least for me, when we see things differently it’s one thing, but to be told (and you were about the 10th person that stated this on this site) that I/we somehow “deluded” ourselves into what Obama was or wasn’t is what can get old. Really old. I don’t much like being told I didn’t hear or see what I clearly heard and saw last year.

I’ve always thought that re-writing history was a practice specific to right wingers, and I suppose you don’t feel like you’re rewriting history when you say basically “he didn’t really promise much” but IMO, that’s exactly what’s happening. Because I’ve been through enough Presidential campaigns to be able to understand them.

And I’ve learned some of the “code speak” of politicians, but obviously not all. And the bottom line for me is, unequivocally, his campaign rhetoric is not lining up at all with his governing actions. Well, I suppose it is on a couple of issues, sorry, don’t mean to imply he’s not meeting ANY of his stated goals. But the ones that were most important to me, he’s either completely backtracked on or weakened it’s significance to the point of being irrelevant.

If you want to defend Obama, by all means do it. But I, for one, would appreciate it if you could do so in a way that doesn’t outright call me delusional or imply it.

Again, have a nice weekend.

Yes, this is true.

What it comes down to of course is what it is people are pessimistic or optimistic about. After all, for everyone who is pessimistic about where healthcare reform is going there is another who is optimistic about it.

The real exasperation though revolves around the fact that neither side can demonstrate unequivocally that the other side is wrong.

Then what it comes down to is which side has the power to make or beak the other.

The left in America is up against all that money, all that power invested in and by the ruling class.

Just being a progressive in America today you are setting yourself for grief. Especially if, like me, you cut your political teeth in the 60s and 70s—and were able to convince yourself this was not true at all.

Yes, this could well be the case.

We sputter and spout things about Obama as though we actaully had access to his subjective, introspective motivation and intention.

We don’t.

But that aside, there is still the growing gap between what he said he would do and what he has done instead. Sooner or later that has to be enough for people like me.

But I am willing to admit I can be no more than the sum of what I know about these things. And they are always subject to change without notice.

No one wants to look more foolish about criticizing Obama than I do.

There could still be an intention to fulfill his promises by way of a trajectory I’m just not seeing clearly.

You know what good intentions are used for, I’m sure. I’d rather not go down that road.

You got that right.
I was telling people last year that there was a reason why my bumper-sticker said ‘Get Disappointed By Someone New’. (They apparently thought I was kidding.)

very well said

glad to help :-)

see, the thing is, you’re right, you just misunderstand my intentions. being disabused of my trust in Obama is exactly my intention, it just hasn’t happened much so far, but i’m on the lookout.

Didn’t mean to be personal, I wasn’t directing it at you because I think it’s a common thing. And it wasn’t my theory, it was Naomi Klein’s, who describes herself as disappointed in Obama.

being disabused of my trust in Obama is exactly my intention, it just hasn’t happened much so far, but i’m on the lookout.

You’d better look a lot harder, if you expect to ever be able to see it.

Hugh’s scandal list.

Reid has done more than just slam his foot on the gas pedal.

He’s putting it right through the cars floor!!!

“Thanks a lot”, Harry!