Parents and lawmakers speak out against Obama's speech to students

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I see what you're saying, but I've never heard the comments the way you seem to be hearing them. The way I've heard it from Day 1 (by which I mean the way I have interpreted what has been said) is simply that you shouldn't worry if you like your current plan, because the law is not going to require you to switch to a different plan. That's all. I've never interpreted any statement as an implied promise that nothing about your coverage will ever change.

I interpreted the message the same way you did because there's no way that it ever really could have meant what he said, but the exact message delivered has varied a little bit:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...e-promise.html

Sometimes he clarifies; others he doesn't. I tend to think that you and I have a pretty good handle on what government can actually do for people. Sadly, I don't have the same faith in the general health care debate audience*, and I think the repetition of this point is kind of deceitful. It reassures people of something that, in good conscience, he probably shouldn't be reassuring them of.

Even if the reform doesn't change the nature of the coverage required in such a way to knock people's plans out of the market entirely, which honestly I think was and could still be on the table, it's just not something that ever should have been expressed the way Obama expressed it some of the time. What he apparently really meant was "at present, we do not intend to pass a bill that will require you to buy an entirely different government approved insurance plan."

* Please take a moment to think about how plausible you considered Palin's death panel comments and then to consider the number of people who apparently took them very literally. Personally, I think if we ever end up with government run single payer, we will ration care, so I don't think Palin's comment was 100% deranged. But to suggest that was a likely outcome anytime soon from Obama's reform was manipulative, and apparently successfully so.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Sadly, I don't have the same faith in the general health care debate audience*, and I think the repetition of this point is kind of deceitful.
. . .

* Please take a moment to think about how plausible you considered Palin's death panel comments and then to consider the number of people who apparently took them very literally.

As best I can tell, the people who believed that were the people who wanted to believe it -- who were already convinced that anything Obama offers is a socialist plot and who were more than happy to believe it. Those people (and yes, the left has certainly its counterparts) wouldn't believe Obama no matter what he said.

Personally, I think if we ever end up with government run single payer, we will ration care, so I don't think Palin's comment was 100% deranged. But to suggest that was a likely outcome anytime soon from Obama's reform was manipulative, and apparently successfully so.

We already have rationed care. It's just that apparently, we're willing to let insurance companies do the rationing.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

As best I can tell, the people who believed that were the people who wanted to believe it -- who were already convinced that anything Obama offers is a socialist plot and who were more than happy to believe it. Those people (and yes, the left has certainly its counterparts) wouldn't believe Obama no matter what he said.

We already have rationed care. It's just that apparently, we're willing to let insurance companies do the rationing.

And we currently have some redress if you feel that your care has been rationed in a way that has harmed your health.

I don't think we'd have that ( or as much of that) if we go to single payer, but again, I don't think that Obamacare = single payer.

I think there are many people who want to believe that health care reform equals making their health care perfect while spreading out the cost of this care onto someone else, in addition to providing care for everyone, of course. I think these people exceed the number of Palinites. I think Obama is trying to woo a certain segment of the insured with claims that he knows are overstated. But that's how the political game is played.

I don't think it's unlikely at all that someone with your general feelings about wanting more stability in your plan will believe that this reform package will make that more likely, based on what Obama has said. But I don't think there's anything in this reform that actually makes it more likely, and in fact, it's probably less likely.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

And we currently have some redress if you feel that your care has been rationed in a way that has harmed your health.

I don't think we'd have that ( or as much of that) if we go to single payer, but again, I don't think that Obamacare = single payer.

I don't know whether we would or not (and I don't know whether, if we did, it would be any more effective than what we have now or not). But I agree -- no one has actually proposed single payer.

That's why the whole debate is so frustrating to me. Some are debating proposals that are on the table or could well be on the table. Others -- many more others, perhaps -- are debating (loudly) things that aren't likely to be on the table.

I think discussion about the sky falling in with single payer are a red herring. Aside from the fact that that's not being proposed and would never pass here, "single payer" alone isn't going to fix things or make them worse. If we look around we see plenty of other countries with a variety of ways of doing things, from Canada's and Britain's systems to Germany's universal coverage using only private insurers. The devil is, as always, in the details, not in "single payer" vs. free market private insurance.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I don't know whether we would or not (and I don't know whether, if we did, it would be any more effective than what we have now or not). But I agree -- no one has actually proposed single payer.

That's why the whole debate is so frustrating to me. Some are debating proposals that are on the table or could well be on the table. Others -- many more others, perhaps -- are debating (loudly) things that aren't likely to be on the table.

I think discussion about the sky falling in with single payer are a red herring. Aside from the fact that that's not being proposed and would never pass here, "single payer" alone isn't going to fix things or make them worse. If we look around we see plenty of other countries with a variety of ways of doing things, from Canada's and Britain's systems to Germany's universal coverage using only private insurers. The devil is, as always, in the details, not in "single payer" vs. free market private insurance.

Yep. And I think this is why the initial big push to pass something without careful review and discussion of the final bill was really odd and to me suspicious. Things have slowed down now, it seems, but do any of us really feel like we know what's going to get passed?

I think the fear about single payer is based on kind of a slippery slope thing as people reflected on how the public option would function. How do you keep that merely competitive when it is subsidized by the federal government? Well, one negative possibility is that you can't and it will drive private insurers out of the marker. What would be left? At that point, wouldn't it be easier to go to a single payer system? Seeing a lot of people in favor of single payer in the media while this was being discussed added to the perception that it might be deliberately where we were headed. Without a bill to look at and any provisions explaining how this would be prevented, I think it's easy to see why people got concerned.


I think Obama's rhetoric in the speech about the public option being self-funded is kind of delusional. If more people could have been insured at a low enough cost to break even, I suspect they would have been in the existing system, but I may be underestimating the value of the government forcing people to buy insurance. Again, I'd like to see the details (or actually I'd like to see a layman's summary of the details), wouldn't you?

ETA: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Pres...00_summary.pdf
I thought the second sentence under Coverage and Choice was interesting.

ETA: Here's the text: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text of the house bill. My impression was that changes had already been made. Does anyone know where you can review those?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Yep. And I think this is why the initial big push to pass something without careful review and discussion of the final bill was really odd and to me suspicious.

See, I didn't find that odd or suspicious at all -- to me that seemed like business as usual. Congress passes monster bills all the time that lots of people (including too many members of Congress) haven't studied carefully. Something like this (typically) has to be done in an off-election year. It made perfect sense, while there was a "mandate" behind the president and while he has a majority in Congress to try and do something quickly, especially on an issue that historically generates lots of heat. And it's not like it came out of a vacuum or was unexpected.

As for the single-payer fear, I think it has less to do with a slippery slope per se and much more to do with deep-seeded (and sometimes rational, sometimes irrational) American distrust of anything that seems to have even a sniff of socialism or government control/oversight about it.

And sorry -- right now I don't know where to look for the latest versions of any bills.

[UGAalum94]

Politics as usual sure. Good government in an area of huge importance, probably not.

I think a lot of the changes I was thinking of are just in the proposed Senate version.