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Memo to the GOP: Stopping Hillary is Not a Healthcare Policy
Apparently taking their leadership from Karl Rove who warned that the Republican candidates must focus on healthcare because the issue is "on the mind of a lot of swing voters," the Republican candidates for president have now latched on to healthcare.
But in the true spirit of their mentor Rove, it appears they think our biggest healthcare crisis is the potential election of Hillary Clinton.
Hearing their fulminations about "socialized medicine" and "Hillary care" almost makes you wonder what they've been drinking.
In a new report, George Lakoff's Rockridge Institute aptly describes the approach of Clinton and the other top tier Democrats as the "neoliberal mode of thought" in its dubious reliance on regulation and technocratic changes to an industry that needs to be dismantled, not tweaked.
But at least Clinton and company are talking about comprehensive reform. The Republican candidates' healthcare policies recall the words attributed, probably erroneously, to Marie Antoinette whose infamous solution to mass shortages of bread was "let them eat cake."
The GOP debate in Orlando Sunday night showed the Republicans' complete disregard for the plight of the tens of millions of Americans who are either uninsured, denied the care they need by insurance companies, or facing bankruptcy or self-rationing due to medical bills.
Front runner Rudy Giuliani thinks the answer is the Bush administration scheme of tax credits to encourage people to buy insurance. But given skyrocketing premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and rising drug and hospital charges, only the most well-off will actually benefit from the tax credits -- much like Bush's other tax cuts.
Sunday night Giuliani unveiled his approach to runaway costs -- getting or forcing more people to buy insurance which would "cut in more than half" the price of healthcare, he claims. If you believe that, next he'll try to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the commercialization of healthcare has had the opposite effect, driving premiums up 87 percent nationally this decade alone. But Guiliani's approach will do wonders for insurance company profits.
Mitt Romney, when he's not prattling on about Clinton, can't seem to decide if he should embrace the Massachusetts plan he engineered or run away from it as a symbol of a "government-run" system that is a supposed anathema to GOP primary voters.
What Romney won't say is the problem with the Massachusetts scheme is not that it's "government-run" (it's not), but that it's a fiasco. The law forces the un-covered to buy insurance. But most have been willing to risk the tax penalties because with no limits on what the insurers can charge the cheapest, junk insurance is for many still out of reach. "Anyone not covered for free, is not buying," says Ben Day, director of Mass-Care, a vocal critic of the law.
John McCain said Sunday that healthcare will be "one of the defining issues of this campaign." Why? The need to oppose "Hillary-care resurrected" and stop the "efforts to raise your taxes." Well thank goodness he stands for something.
Tom Tancredo has an opinion on healthcare too -- hospitals are closing because "they've had to provide care for illegal immigrants and cannot be reimbursed." But facts will always be the enemy of inflammatory rhetoric. Immigrants use 55 percent less healthcare, and immigrant children 74 percent less, than U.S.-born residents.
Finally there's the new darling of the race, Mike Huckabee. "We don't have a healthcare crisis, we have a health crisis." This is a common thematic of conservative ideologues; it's your fault for getting sick for not exercising enough or not eating enough fish oil. And, if you developed cancer for breathing polluted air or eating contaminated spinach, that's probably your fault too.
In the seven years of the Bush administration, the number of people uninsured during a two-year period has grown by 17 million. One in six adults with insurance have "substantial problems paying their medical bills," says the Kaiser Family Foundation. Consumer Reports says that 70 million Americans are under-insured, with coverage that "barely covers their medical needs and leaves them unprepared to pay for major medical expenses."
Yet somehow and entire field of Republican candidates for president has missed those little problems, and adopted positions for solving our national healthcare nightmare that range from more tax breaks for the rich to denying care to immigrants to lecturing us to do more push ups. Oh, and keeping Hillary out of the White House.
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Not too long ago Rose Ann DeMoro was critical of HRC for proposing 'mandatory health insurance' instead of the more politically correct 'Single Payer' concept.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/hillary-learned-the-wrong_b_64905.html
Something change her mind? Conditions on the ground now different?
The tragedy of the uninsured is proliferating into education, mental health, and crime. The economic agenda that drives the morality of the Republican candidates is abominable. The silver spoon they eat from has poisoned their human sensibilities.
Ohg
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/abortion-conflicting-messages/
That goal is not just an obsession of the reichwing. At this site you can read comments by many who fancy themselves "progressives" and who, in the time-honored tradition of the left, consistently form a circular firing squad -- resulting in advantage for the reich.
I have a suggestion. Why doesn't all the government offcials who oppose "government run healthcare" give up their federal (government run) healthcare benefits? After all isn't this just socialized medicine on a smaller basis?
But Hillary's plan is a sham too, just as bad as Arnold's, Mitt's, and Blagoivich's smoke and mirrors here in Illinois... and they all make sure they're as hard to keep track of as a herd of wolves in sheep's clothing. That's my opinion, but it's based on facts. I'm going to say it over and over again to as many people as possible until a critical mass listens and understands: including the profit-driven health insurance industry in any health care "reform" is like including the KKK in Civil Rights or Al Qaeda in National Security. Their goals are perverse and contrary to our ability to form a sustainable, affordable, high quality and (dare I say) MORAL health care system (yes, I do dare). They have been allowed to run so rough-shod over us for so long that we simply cannot afford to police them any longer, let alone continue feeding them such generous portions of our health care pie. They are morbidly obese, and are the first and foremost obesity problem we should be tackling. They outweigh 47 million uninsured Americans in political power (at least the kind that can be bought) as well as how much money and devastated lives they're costing the rest of us to do very little other than cause harm. Anyone (poliician or no) who tries to tell anyone otherwise either hasn't done their homework, or has sold out "we the people" and is trying to pull the wool over our eyes so they can take another big bite. They're killing Americans, six times the number of 9-11's worth every year, year after year, and 18 times the number of American volunteers dieing in Iraq...(even more than the number of innocent Iraqis we've managed to kill) and nobody's stopping them. Shame on us.
I'm with you on this one. Health insurance is the problem, not the solution. Billions of dollars are robbed from the health care system every year in insurance company profits. All of the profits are being made off the sickness and misery of others. It is completely immoral. The health care industry is the largest lobbying spender in the country and the largest part of that is pharmaceuticals (sp?). Hillary's health care plan looks just like Mitt Romney's plan which was instituted in Massachusetts. John Edward's plan (out ahead of Hillary's is roughly the same as is Barack Obama's). I have real problems being forced to purchase health insurance from a for profit insurance company.
The current system is unsustainable. The profit motive must be removed from medicine.
Watch out! Demonizing the Dem candidate has the WINNING GOP strategy in the last 2 elections.
Paraphrasing Carville "Good news for Dems is that they'd have to mess up big time to lose the next election; good news for Repubs is that Dems are totally capable of doing so". If Dems shove Hillary down our throats half of us will choke. Dems should not blame that on the millions of Americans who will be left without any chance of representation if they run a moderate Republican (Hillary) against a right-wing one.
It is up to the democrats to stop Hillary Clinton and to begin lessoning the grip of her corporate masters. Just look at the people surrounding her and the money she takes in from Murdoch and company.
My question has always been, why aren't Big Business and Small Business on the Reform bandwagon? Their contributions to and cost of management of health insurance for their employees are monsterous. These costs sledgehammer their bottom lines, yet they do not speak against the way health cost is weighted against them. Go figure.
I agree. Although I disagree with universal care on principle, I don't understand why business wouldn't want it. Unless they believe their taxes would be raised sky high to pay for it.
There are a lot of businesses -- of all sizes -- that support the idea of universal health coverage. Believe it or not, businesses want healthy and happy employees and many are concerned about their inability to provide satisfactory coverage.
The issue, as always, is cost. If you only talk about the extent of coverage and not about cost and how healthcare is delivered, then that is just a perscription for a massive new entitlement program with an even more massive new tax bill. There is not enough money anywhere to give everyone all of the healthcare they may want (and no system out there provides that) -- so where do the lines get drawn and how much will those lines cost you ,me and every other citizen and business?
As usual, another article without mentioning the real power in what will or will not determine the future's healthcare management approach..........the medical professionals. The docs, nurses, techs and peripheral support personnel have offered little voice in the debate on purpose as their turn will come. And when it does their voice will scatter politicians who up to now are just posturing as if they matter -- they don't, and won't.
Dems MUST EXPOSE Hillary BEFORE the primary. She is weak and her complete lack of integrity on a personal level is astounding.
All day long Rush was going after her on the fund raising issue. Wrestling 500 dollars out of Chinese dishwashers is not kosher! we have other choices. Hillary ain't the ONE! J R
A quick note about nothing in particular:
"Let them eat cake" is almost as widely quoted out-of-context as the old "fire in a theatre" thing.
The context is that Marie Antoinette was so ignorant of the living conditions of the common people that she literally could not conceive that they could lack for something so common as bread because of poverty, and apparently assumed that the lack of bread was simply a temporary shortage; the the people, as hse herself, wouls have cake on the tablke if the bread ran out...
People in this country want and need socialized medicine. The Republicans (and most of the Democrats) do a knee-jerk rejection of socialized anything, but that is left-over Cold War reactionism which does not involve any thought process or analysis of the situation.
Any proposed health-care reform which retains the health insurance industry is a SWINDLE organized by that very industry to perpetuate and enrich itself. The only reason any candidate wants to retain the insurance industry in their health-care plan is because that industry has given them money for their campaign. Any other excuse offered up is a smoke-screen, since it's a proven fact that health-care WITH insurance company involvement costs several times the amount for the same care as paid by MediCare. The insurance companies do not add value, they are parasites which take large percentages of premiums to line their pockets while denying care to those whose money it is.
Health-care reform should, in fact, be focused on the elimination of the insurance industry, just as other government reforms should be focused on eliminating or regulating the other parasitic corporations which have been running the show since Ronald Reagan snoozed in the Oval Office.
De-regulation was a disaster, just like everything else Reagan did as either President or Governor. The Republicans' insistence upon comparing themselves to Reagan is very telling: they are announcing that they too will be looting the treasury for their cronies, working to eliminate all civil liberties, ignoring the Constitution, starting wars on a whim, perpetuating conflicts despite Congress' rules to the contrary, ignoring and/or belittling United Nations resolutions, and enriching themselves at the taxpayers' expense.
"Health-care reform should, in fact, be focused on the elimination of the insurance industry..."
BINGO!
... at least, the health insurance industry. This is the elephant in the parlor, and nobody will deal with it directly.
On the street, the word for an intermediary who arranges an assignation between a customer and a provider is "PIMP". The reactionaries who wail about 'socialized medicine' (a complete misnomer -- providers would remain private, only the payment would be 'socialized') have no problem utilizing the police services we all pay for, or the highways we all pay for, or... you get the idea.
It remains a matter of great hilarity that the right-wing screamers are, in fact, screaming for the privilege of paying 50-to-60 percent more than necessary, at the very least, for their health care... all in the service of some paper-thin, slogan-laden ideology for which they haven't ever done the math.
Newsflash. There is nothing preventing you from paying your doctor directly.
Republicans and Democrats are dealing with the insurance elephant. Hillary, Blagoivich, Mitt and Arnold (for example) are ALL saying "Let's force everyone to feed the beast that is the problem (and use tax dollars to cover the actuarial losers); that'll fix it!" 77% of SCHIP funds are going to feed the beast that is the problem according to Rahm Emanuel, who was using the figure to explain why it's not (gasp) "socialized" medicine. No one (or not enough) even seems to care. I'm 100% in favor of giving care providers tax dollars to provide care for our kids (grown-ups oo) and 100% against using them to feed the beast that is the problem. PLEASE WAKE UP AMERICA!
Gee... lots of half-baked ideology, some downright silliness and -- of course, a continued, enthusiastic refusal to DO THE MATH.
1. "if it wasn't so readily available, people wouldn't utilize it for every little stubbed toe, and doctors would be forced to lower prices"
Newsflash:
The doctors' prices constitute maybe 30% of the problem. The imposed clerical overhead of dealing repeatedly with countless different private insurer bureacracies, not to mention the greedy 'surcharge' of profits for insurers, constitute the real problem.
What percentage of the population, do you guess, just LIVES for the thrill of unnecessary medical treatment?
BTW, should we consider preventative medicine one of those "little stubbed toes"?
2. "There is nothing preventing you from paying your doctor directly."
Newsflash: There is, if you can't AFFORD it! Wanna open up a whole new vista for yourself? Look up the definition of "insurance".
3. "If there was no health insurance, which drives up the price of health care (since there is no PERSONAL responsibility to pay for it) everyone WOULD be in a position to pay directly!"
Newsflash: Does your magical theorem include a guaranteed upper-middle-class income for everyone -- y'know, so "everyone would be in a position to pay directly"?
Bleeding through all these labored, contorted and strained 'arguments' is a bottom-line resentment of the idea that we're all invested in the common good -- and a ridiculous denial of the simple fact that, as the largest available financial pool on the continent, the government is in the best position to minimize cost per person and COMPLETELY ELIMINATE the private insurers' profit gouging.
But, please, do carry on... ignore the math, ventilate all your selfish hostilities and ideological delusions -- until catastrophic illness turns YOU into what you most disdain.
There is nothing else left to run on for the Rep. Party. The war in Iraq is a mess, the number of terrorists have increased, as well as the number of Bin Laden tapes, economy may hit recession pretty soon, so let the fear-mongering begin! Hillary is coming and that means the Rep. Party must begin issuing Hillary-terror-alerts, for "HillaryHealthCare".
Why not introduce a plan of their own? Well, in order to introduce a reform to something, there must first be an acknowledgment of some sort that there is at the very least a health care problem, (which is actually a crisis) and clearly none of the Rep. candidates believe that. As long as they and their wealthy class are insured, that's all that really matters.
Of course acknowledgment of problems, or lack thereof, fits into a pattern for the GOP. They deny the science of global warming; they deny the potential of stem cell research; they deny a problem in Iraq; they deny evolution; they deny problem with eavesdropping, huge tax cuts for the rich, addiction to oil, and the list can go on and on. So the latest is of course, health care. They seriously don't believe it's a problem, because it's not a problem for them and the wealthy class that votes for them.
Here's a definition of delusions (I think it's very fitting for much of the right wing):
http://www.minddisorders.com/Br-Del/Delusions.html
Unfortunately, it's not just the "wealthy class" that votes for the Reeps and their Democlones. A lot of sadly deceived working class stiffs and formerly known as middle class poor folks who grew up watching Reagan and Schwarzenegger action hero movies seem to have as hard a time separating the chads from their ballots as they do separating fiction from fact. The working class needs to wake up to the health care crisis and demand single-payer, national healthcare for all, lest they become or remain unwitting co-conspirators and perpetrators of their own genocide. Our health is our only real asset when it comes to being able to pursue liberty and happiness, care and provide for ourselves and those who depend on us.
Your use of the word "genocide" to describe the absence of socialized medicine in America has caused you to be designated a "silly person". Those actual victims of "genocide" are insulted.
These Republicans campaign that the worst thing that could happen to this country is Hillary Clinton as President. The truth is that he worst thing that has ever happened to this country is George W. Bush as President. To continue down that road as they have been doing is laughable. The Republican candidates, except for Ron Paul, are a joke - they are not even Bush-apologists, they ignore the current President and the consequences of his policies to the American electorate. And they expect us to buy that crap again.
You're right, but I can't say I have much faith in Clinton considering she's taken more money from the healthcare industry than ANY candidate, republican or democrat.
Good article. Now, may I suggest, that this blogger come up with some real life case histories about healthcare which has nothing to do with pushups, jogging, eating less, and so on? I could think, for example, of a car accident. Everyone in this country must drive, and if you do not drive, the situation is even more dangerous. Just try to cross the road. So, car accidents happen. A patient must be rushed to the hospital. There may be a time window in which the patient must reach that trauma center of hospital. Here we already have one problem There are large areas where a trauma center or hospital is not available within a certain time frame. Then the insurance question kicks in. If the insurer does NOT pay, or, if one does not have insurance, one must pay out of pocket. You may not have insurance if you had a previous hospitalization and the insurer already kicked you out then, and probably you may not have a job either, to pay for the trauma hospitalization. Similar scenario with a sports injury. Some congenital defects show up later in life. A patient may need X-rays, MRI's, etc, before treatment, but the insurer will not pay for it. Patient has no money and has to wait until Medicare kicks in. Come on, we can make some good cases here. Let us give them some meat to chew on. The Republicans speak to a certain, large, segment of the public, those who listen to talkradio. These people DO hear common sense reasoning and respond to it. They drive cars, they do sports, they are between jobs sometimes and lose their insurance too.
"These people DO hear common sense reasoning and respond to it."
Really?
Auto accidents are covered by auto insurance. I haven't lived in every state, but my guess is that the insurance companies have gotten compulsory insurance mandated in all of them.
Umm..snag..in CA, insurance IS mandatory..however, I was hit HEAD on by an insured, U. S. citizen (white at that!)...so much for mandates..I HAD insurance..but..the bills were so high..I had to friggn file bankruptsy BEFORE the law changed...as I could never, ever have paid off all the idiotic charges that were imposed on me while idiot doctors "tried" to fix me..(they never did)...
To respond to Rose,...I liked your post, except for the subtle endorsement of HRC...who, in spite of her rep, gets more money from pharmaceutical companies than any repub candidate...
What Hilary IS is an easy mark...easy to dislike, ergo, easy to use to scare people..a favorite tactic of the far right.
I'm not quite ready for truly socialized medicine..but would prefer MY tax dollars going to children...it's not their fault if their parents are irresponsible or just plain poor.
Sadly Huckabee is right on one count..Americans DO bring a lot of illness onto ourselves..McDonalds, Taco Bell...fast food nation..and diabetes, on the rise for one reason..poor eating habits.. hey, I'm a stupid smoker, determined to quit again (I did quit for 14 years)..and yes...I should pay higher premiums for this stupid habit.. but then be credited a bit back because I'm a vegetarian..
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Posted October 22, 2007 | 10:18 PM (EST)