Words Designed to Kill Health Care Reform
Over and over again, I hear from Oregonians that we need real health care reform that provides every American with access to quality, affordable care. That is why Congress and President Obama are so focused on this issue.
Of course there are folks in the insurance and hospital industries, from the medical profession, and both political parties who will have different ideas about how to achieve our goal. But I was shocked when I read a memo from Republican strategist Dr. Frank Luntz laying out plans to dismantle any effort to give all Americans access to quality health care. Dr. Luntz, the man who developed language designed to promote preemptive war in Iraq and distract from the severity of global warming, is at it again -- this time with a messaging strategy designed to sink our historic opportunity for health care reform.
Let's be clear: this is not a strategy to push certain ideas about health reform. It is a strategy intended solely to kill reform efforts altogether. In his own words, Dr. Luntz has stated, "You're not going to get what you want, but you can kill what they're trying to do."
Not surprisingly, since the American public is strongly in favor of fixing the broken health care system, the Luntz strategy is predicated on deception.
In his memo, Dr. Luntz lays out multiple ways that opponents of health care reform can trick and manipulate the American public. One strategy that stood out to me is to call efforts to reform our broken health care system a "bailout for the insurance industry." This is ridiculous. This statement is developed to serve the same interests who stopped at nothing to derail health care reform in the 90's, who blocked health care coverage for low-income children, and whose top Medicare priority for 15 years has been transferring money from seniors and taxpayers to the insurance industry.
When support for a prescription drug benefit in Medicare became too powerful to ignore, President Bush and his allies created the convoluted system we now have. Rather than simply add a prescription drug benefit to the tried, true, and popular Medicare program as Democrats wanted, they devised a giveaway for insurance companies. For years Dr. Luntz's clients have virtually abdicated health care policy making to the insurance industry; the last thing it needs is a bailout.
Today though, even the insurance industry is engaged in constructive negotiations about how to repair the health care system. Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans who support reform, however, Dr. Luntz's new game plan to stop change is being embraced by leaders in the Republican Party. In a briefing where Dr. Luntz presented his strategy to Republican House members, Rep. Mike Pence from Indiana, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, made it official by saying, "Frank is back."
So expect a massive misinformation campaign coming to a health care debate near you. Opponents using Dr. Luntz's doublespeak will argue for a "balanced, common sense approach" to health care but what they really want is to keep the system the way it is. They'll say that a public plan will not be "patient centered," but their real goal is to block accessible health care for every American. They'll say reform will deny Americans "choice" even when every American will be allowed to keep their health insurance and their doctor. They'll claim that the "quality of care will go down," while callously ignoring the fact that millions of Americans have no health care at all and millions more are denied the medications and procedures they need.
What we are seeing, yet again, is that while Dr. Luntz and his clients may have excellent polling data, they are utterly clueless about what the American people want.
But, I have to give Dr. Luntz credit on one front: he points out that Republicans need to appear to be on the "right side of reform" or they lose the health care argument. The problem is that you can't fake support for reform. You're either for improving the quality and affordability of health care or you're against it. You're either for expanding coverage to every American or you're against it. At the end of the day, no matter what talking points they use, each member of Congress is going to have to vote for or against improving our broken health care system.
With small businesses and families being buried by rising costs, with 47 million uninsured, millions more underinsured and American companies losing ground against their global competitors, it is evident to anyone that our health care system is broken. There are Republicans and Democrats, insurance executives and patient advocates, physicians and hospital representatives all working to meet one of America's most pressing challenges. We certainly do not all agree on what a reformed health system should look like or how to get there, but there are people on all sides who are negotiating in good faith. The country deserves that debate on the merits, not poll-tested attack lines intended to prolong the broken system we have today.
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The best healthcare reform plan of all those I have read is in a small paperback:
Healthcare, Guaranteed, by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (formerly of the NIH)
It is the best of public oversight and private delivery. His Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan:
1) guarantees coverage for 100% of Americans at the level of the insurance currently provided to members of Congress
2) gives everyone a choice of insurers, hospitals and doctors
3) changes the fee-for-service paradigm and focuses on high-quality, co-ordinated healthcare with emphasis on outcome; information flow in both directions is vital
4) pays for itself from a dedicated fund that cannot be raided for other government programs
5) encompasses the framework for reasonable and timely resolution of malpractice disputes
6) separates health insurance from employment, getting that function off the backs of businesses and eliminating the primary cause of labor disputes
7) ) achieves cost controls through eliminating redundant bureaucracies, fraud and excessive administrative costs
The plan is simple and comprehensive. I recommend it to anyone interested in true healthcare reform. This is the moment - let's be bold and get it right.
I found a thumbnail sketch of Dr. Emanuel's plan, written by him for the Huffington Post last July:
http://www
Or you can search HuffPo for "Ezekiel Emanuel" to see several articles.
It's fantasy land. It doesn't matter how efficient you make IT or medical records. It still takes too many people just to keep the system going before you provide any care to anyone. You can be as efficient as you want. If there are 100 different insurance companies then you will have to have the necessary people to shuffle the documentation, whether it's electronic or paper. The 100 will deny claims and want more information--as they always do.
Automatic appeals on denials by insurers & an appeals process that works across the board.
Most patients just accept the denials as final & don't pursue the appeals process, which is what the insurers count on. If we change the process where appeals are automatic on ALL denial of claims with outside/neutral reviews on a random % of these appeals. Also enforce penalties on insurers who's denial of benefits are arbitrary & overturned in the appeals process would go a long way in cleaning up the system.
Insurance for all doesn't mean a dam* thing if the insurers can deny so many valid claims with no penalty for their actions.
Read Emanuel's plan. He addresses all of that.
Works just fine in Canada.
Some form of national health care works in every industrialized country EXCEPT the US. Canada, for instance, has a national health care plan for basic stuff and insurance that can be purchased for other things, like additional prescription coverage, dental, etc.
"It can't work" is always the excuse until someone shows that it can. In the US, fifty years of insurance company propaganda has turned a lot of Americans into chickens who vote for Colonel Sanders.
It's a matter of priorities. One year of Bush's war in Iraq would've provided Congressional-level health coverage for EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN for about 5 years.
You're right, this is the moment... we must be bold, vigiliant, AND GET IT RIGHT. This looks to be the best plan I've seen (as a consumer, not an expert). I just dont trust the insurance companies, they're too much like big banks, they've controlled the playing field for so long, they'll do just like the banks... keep writing their own rules.
That's where the government oversight comes into the plan. The insurance companies have to operate within the rules set by the National Health Board - for example, no cherry picking of patients . Fees are set and adjusted annually by the 12 Regional Health Boards.
The plan is ingenious, far and away the best I've seen. I suggest that you read the paperback - $11 or so at Amazon and a quick read.
Thanks for that! Makes a lot of SENSE!
ran a search to read more about this plan... PBS has this: http://www
then there's this, second article on page... fear mongering: http://www
How about a system that looks as as patients and not as "profit centers".
Sounds good to me. The ones that provide nose jobs, super white teeth, or bolt-ons..
yeah, the way things are set up now, patients are just an invoice... the insurance company is the customer.
I have been in the healthcare industry for 30 years. There are so many people employed in this industry just to shuffle paper. Large buildings full of people without a single doctor or nurse. Most of them are well paying jobs. Billions in profit. The only efficient system will be a single payer system--I'm sorry if you don't like that. Those with more money can go pay for it at private places. There will still be places open for boob jobs and botox. The fight against a single payer system will be the most mouthy, trashy fight we have ever seen. Everyone just needs to strap themselves in, because we are going for one heck of a ride. Please don't be brainwashed by what you hear, go to public TV or listen to neutral voices such as this.
I started working for one of the largest corporations in the early 1970s. Everyone was covered by Blue Cross and the company paid them a 10% admin fee to adminkister the contract and make payments. Everything seemed to work just fine back then. No exclusions. They paid for the doctors fees (according to a rate schedule) and were happy with their 10% markup fee. Since that time an entire industry has grown around excluding patients and limiting treatments, as well as micro-managing things. The simplicity of the old times is something we should return to.
Thank you, Senator Merkely. Spot on.
Now, if you're not already doing it, get the Democratic "leadership" in the Senate and House to include experts on single-payer insurance systems to be part of the discussions, including hearings and roundtables.
The recent fiasco led by Senator Baucus, nominally a fellow Democrat, was a disgrace. If the Democrats, including the Administration, go in the tank for the insurance lobby/industry on health care...whi
That the G.O.P. For you,….Gran
Or rather, Gang Of Profiteers.
Here is an idea to cut cost of health care, Tort reform. Most of the cost of health care come from doctors and hospitals having to pay huge malpractice insurance. If we passed a bill that said whoever lost the suit would pay all court cost that would stop alot of suits and lower malpractice insurance premiums. Why would we want the government to run health care seeing the great job it has done with medicare/medicade and social security. I do not want to become like Britian who recently told 6,000 women with breast cancer they will not get treatment and will have to die because the government does not have the money for their treatment.
This is just not true. Free screening (mammograms), whatever follow-up with surgery and medication is needed and physician follow-up and hospital and clinic stays are your right as a taxpaying woman in the UK . This is how healthcare is done in Canada, and I cannot find anything online about the UK system (NHS) running out of money--in fact they have reduced breast cancer mortality to the lowest ever, and instituted a new program of cancer patients getting all prescriptions free--not just cancer drugs--all prescription drugs.
We pay a bit more in taxes, and we may not have the same number of fancy hospitals you do in the USA. but in BC, Canada, we have a world-class research and treatment Cancer Clinic, and we do it with no charge at time of treatment, and you get an appointment this week.
You're right, arachne646. That story about women in "Britian" is a bald-faced lie. We need a public health care plan to compete with the private insurance companies. Let people keep the plans they have or take the public plan. It should be up to them.
The GOP is always fond of saying that competition is a good thing, but they don't want any competition for those in the health care industry who control them. What that shows us is that greed rules. (As if we didn't already get that.)
As for Medicare, I'm a senior who is very satisfied with it. And so is everyone I know. What we do NOT like is the corruption of Medicare by special interests (mainly high-priced doctor's groups and less-than-honest medical insurance companies) who want to continue to make Medicare their cash cow. Obama's right...th
So as far as I'm concerned the Republicans here who are doing the fear-mongering need to stop and ask themselves whether they really approve of what lobbyists and the greedy health care interests are doing behind closed doors. They're not just having tea.
The claim of 6000 women not getting breast cancer treatment is a big fat whopper.
Google it and see.
Consider also that hospitals charge the insured more in order to cover the costs of the uninsured, whom hospitals are required by law to treat. If someone who is uninsured comes to the emergency room, they may not be turned away just because they can't pay. Emergency rooms at hospitals are the primary provider for many, many people, especially the poor and uninsured. Who do you think pays for it? We, the taxpayers and the insured, do -- every day.
As a nurse, I believe that health care should never have to be a profit-making enterprise. I personally experience every day the consequences of having let the bean-counters take over: unsafe staffing ratios, administrations that squeeze more and more out of fewer and fewer overworked staff, burned out nurses -- nurses who are devalued and treated as though they are disposable -- high staff turnover, incompetent and disruptive doctors.
The system is very, very broken.
Your post is categorically false. My brother is a dentist, his biggest expense is not malpractice insurance. You are repeating a talking point that has NO basis in fact whatsoever.
http://pet
http://www
Right now his biggest expense is the fact that insurance companies refuse to pay for services or pay half what the claim is; so he has to pay for an office person to do nothing but try to get the insurance companies to pay him or get it from the patient who was supposed to be covered 100%. If the insurance companies would pay reasonably for fees or pay for the services they say they do in their policies my brother could save the cost of an employee on his small business.
He's had to raise his prices just to stay above water. Now you know why healthcare costs so damn much in this country.
Funny thing is the government run system, Medicare, pays claims in full and on time.
Expect to see more outrageous stories like this from the GOP, Limbots, and the Hannidroids.
You obviously don't work in health care Mike. Ever wonder why so many CT scans, labs and MRIs are ordered here in the US? With no obvious benefit in life expectancy or mortality - solely to avoid a lawsuit.
And don't give me that BS about "only a handful of malpractice suits actually go to trial". I'm not going to have my malpractice insurance jacked up even higher because someone wants a settlement. Not on my watch.
Until tort reform happens I'll continue to order every test in the book and document carefully. And no one - not the government or the insurance company can tell me differently. It's not their butt on the line 45-50 times a day.
Don;t get me wrong, I'd love to work for nationalized health care and get paid the same to see 15 patients a day. That's why they have waiting lists.
You can tell the foundation of this conservative/right wing propaganda machine (Heritage Foundation, American Spectator, Gingrich, et al) is crumbling, when their "bs" is on the mainstream's radar AS "bs." 15 years ago, no one questioned the use of bs terms like "social engineering," "class warfare," "equality of opportunity vs. equality of result," indeed "political correctnes
Luntz is like the small time hood who returns to the scene of the crime to pick up the scraps, after the big time hoods have looted the place; except now, the police are waiting.
Two questions:
How many of us are still willing to be bs'ed?
What are the big time hoods up to right now?
I say we start sending our medical and insurance bills to congress. McCain didn't know how much a gallon of gas was during the election. Maybe they think we are making this all up. Congress doesn't have to pay for anything that we have to pay for maybe it's time they find out why we are so upset.
Good point, and since the White House is setting up websites (which I think is a great thing) why not do the same for Health Care so we can all let them know how it really is. I live and work in a very conservative GOP area... but remember a lot of republican people noticed and were impacted by Obama's reference to his mother's last days... that were spent on the phone arguing with the health insurance companies. NC voted for Obama (I'm very proud of that) and I think Health Care is NOT a party line issue...
it's haves vs the have-nots.
See, there are two classes of people in this country: those who, like my sister and her husband, have always had employer-paid health care coverage of high quality and uninterrupted service. They pay little or nothing for that coverage--or so they think. Because their coverage comes with their jobs, they don't have the out of pocket, so they may not realize how much higher their salaries could be if coverage costs weren't taken from their pay before they ever see a check.
The rest of us are those who: lost a job and therefore health care coverage (before HPPA); the self-employed who pay an arm, a leg, and half the other leg for coverage (that's me); the people with pre-existing conditions who can't get coverage at any price; the people who could get coverage but can't afford it.
Only the first class of people think America has "the best health care system in the world." Too bad every single member of Congress is in that class. I agree with the posters who say our lawmakers should try walking a mile in the shoes of those who have not had health care as something they never have to think much about because it's always been there for them.
The only good news re health care reform: since 1992, we have added a whole lot more people to the second class. That and that alone may prompt change.
I've worked with ethical public relations professionals. They have my respect.
Luntz is an unprincipled spinmeister. If he told me the sky was blue today, I'd go take a look myself.
But he got you to look.
Exactly! If Luntz tells you something, you'd better go find out the truth!
The Luntz scheme to defeat health care reform is a red herring. The Insurance companies own the Democrats and Obama. The voters expect reform the Democrats will not deliver.
So the Senator from Oregon puts out a story like this to scapegoat the Republicans. He picks a political consultant to the the party completely rejected by the voters? Come on.
Look how the Democrats defeated bankruptcy
I expect Democratics to continue this behavior of selling out the voters who placed their hopes in them.
Wow, do you need a reality check.
The two chief Republican propagandists: Frank Luntz, Grover Norquist.
People say that our government can't run cost effective and efficient programs. Well, I beg to differ. Medicare has always been very well run (until Bush and friends messed with it and prescriptions etc.)
The biggest enemies to health care reform include democrats (excluding John Conyers), who have kept single payer off the table. Also, a report out of Democracy Now finds that single payer was only mentioned 5 times during the weeks leading up to the healthcare reform summit, one of the mentions was an argument against single payer.
But single-payer is no longer being discussed because the Republicans want the Dems to go for single-payer, which they think they can defeat. They'll have a harder time defeating a fair plan that allows people to keep the insurance they have now or else choose another plan. The competition between the public plan and private plans will definitely bring prescription and insurance prices down. And competition is good, at least that's what smart, respectful, clear-headed Republicans used to say. They used to reason with Democrats and come up with solutions. Now all they do is lobby and use deceit and hateful rhetoric to try to destroy everything that doesn't go exactly their way. Well, they can't have everything. That's not how government should work. And that's not how grownups behave.
Misinformation ; A Republican art ,the best spinners in the business . If the Democrats don't drastically change the health system in this country they should be drummed out of office. We already have Medicare just expand it . Set rules for hospital charges and doctor salaries . Let Medicare set the cost of drugs to a fair level. There is no reason a country a wealthy as ours should have people going with out medical care for any reason.
ITS EASY TO SEE AS YOU LOOK AROUND AT THE FACES IN CONGRESS THAT FOR THE MAJORITY OF THEM , THEIR TIME IS LONG OVER. SOME OF THESE GUYS HAVE BEEN THERE FOREVER. TIME FOR NEW BLOOD, BOTH PARTYS, THAT ARE NOT OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.
Yes. They haven't been in the real world and so they cannot and do not want to understand what things are like for real people.
please take off you caps-it's annoying.
The only thing they see is that insurance companies help get them re-elected. It's time to cut off the flow of money. Regular citizens can't get this kind of access neither should big business. No matter how much they pay.
This isn't a government buy the people anymore it's a government by those who can pay the most.
"set rules for hospital charges and doctors salaries".
He and went to Denmark to get his surgery and treatment and he is okay today. Obama says he doesn't have enough "general practioners" for this reform to work.
You can always find some stories, however I was on a waiting list for 4 months here for a digital mammography for possible CANCER. Yes in the good ole USA. Ask the majority of Canadians and they will tell you that they don't want America's system at all.
I've lived under Canadian medicare for 46 years, in Saskatchewan where the program was founded. Canada has had nation-wide universal health care since 1966.
The system is not perfect, but also not the disaster that the HMO directed ads and right-wing media tell you it is.
There is no committee that decides whether you get treatment for cancer or any other illness. I keep hearing that chestnut and no one knows where it came from.
My father-in-law is 84 years old, and it will be up to him, his doctor and a heart specialist to decide whether his condition should be treated with medication or open-heart surgery. They will weigh his odds of survival, life expectancy and quality of life, not the cost.
There are waiting lists, but if your illness is life-threatening and urgent, your doctor should be able to jump the queue to get you into treatment more quickly. We have a doctor and nurse shortage, just like every other country with a baby boomer population. Case in point: my sister in law is a nurse, but after a number of years on the job, she's currently having knee surgery and therapy instead of looking after others.
BTW: According to The Independent, the MRSA treatment is still in the human health trial phase; it will be in widespread use as soon as possible. Cost won't be an issue because it will save $ millions in treatment costs long term.
ALL of my Canadian friends (both conservative and liberal) are please with their health care system, especially compared with the USA. Yes, there was a brain drain for a few years in the 1980s, but then "managed care" (mangled care) took over in the USA and added a new layer of bureaucracy. Now health care providers make less while patients pay more and get less.
Insurance companies found a loophole to avoid state insurance regulations in ERISA, a Federal law, which was set up in the 1970s to protect pension and benefit plans. ERISA was never intended to be a substitute for insurance regulation, a right reserved for the states by the U.S. Constitution, but courts have allowed it to supersede state laws. Insurance companies have fought tooth and nail against any Federal insurance regulations. Only now, with some form of universal coverage seeming inevitable have they relaxed any opposition to any meaningful regulation.
I know that there will be many flaws in a government run health care plan, but after living with the mess that corporations have made of it, I look forward to the change. At least with government plans we can vote the rascals out when they misbehave. Corporate malevalance seems unimpeded.
This is a link to a PBS Frontline special called "Sick Around the World" which shows how five capitalist countries provide good universal healthcare coverage, and dispels much of the misinformation hearsay being tossed around by many on the Right (Including the insurance reseller AARP).
http://www
The five countries are England, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany, and Japan.
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