Right show, wrong interview.

Post #322,650 by mmoffitt 3/10/10 4:43:06 PM Reply	Right show, wrong interview. The one you should have quoted was the one with Dr. Marcia Angell. BILL MOYERS: So, has President Obama been fighting as hard as you wished? MARCIA ANGELL: Fighting for the wrong things and too little, too late. He gave away the store at the very beginning by compromising. Not just compromising, but caving in to the commercial insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. And then he stood back for months while the thing just fell apart. Now he's fighting, but he's fighting for something that shouldn't pass. Won't pass and shouldn't pass. What this bill does is not only permit the commercial insurance industry to remain in place, but it actually expands and cements their position as the lynchpin of health care reform. And these companies they profit by denying health care, not providing health care. And they will be able to charge whatever they like. So if they're regulated in some way and it cuts into their profits, all they have to do is just raise their premiums. And they'll do that. Not only does it keep them in place, but it pours about 500 billion dollars of public money into these companies over 10 years. And it mandates that people buy these companies' products for whatever they charge. Now that's a recipe for the growth in health care costs, not only to continue, but to skyrocket, to grow even faster. BILL MOYERS: But given that, why have the insurance companies, health insurance companies been fighting reform so hard? MARCIA ANGELL: Oh, they haven't fought it very hard, Bill. They really haven't fought it very hard. What they're fighting for is the individual mandate. And if they get that mandate, if everyone does have to buy their commercial products, then they're going to be extremely happy with it. http://www.pbs.org/m.../transcript3.html This thing is a disaster and anyone who has worked in either the healthcare industry or the health insurance industry knows it.
Post #322,665 by Ashton 3/11/10 2:14:32 AM Reply	Potter had numerous reservations too, of course You'd have to watch the show at PBS; whether the actual/Final/At-Last thing provides the means for redress via regulation: when the greed-heads do their predictable lateral arabesques -- seems to be the prime question. Potter made clear that many revisions would have to occur after signing; that these should be anticipated in the final wording. He was well aware that every part of the Medico-Industrial Complex would immediately be setting out to exploit loopholes. (It was his specialty, back then.) ... And it mandates that people buy these companies' products for whatever they charge. Agreed that, if that is the exact result of the final bill -- then it will be odious. I've lost track of the revision game; certainly it could be a disaster. i had expected that it would, anyway -- we are now dysfunctional in all important matters. I also don't think that Obama could have, single-handedly, handed the Insurance Cos. their heads, (too many employees turned out at once: for a start.) However brilliantly logical and economical that would have been, logic has little to do with matters involving this much extorted cash. I've aways considered this whole topic to be fraught with thousands of means of subversion -- we Are that corrupt. Clearly anyone with a 100 IQ would want a Public Option; just as clearly -- anyone with a $100M (2-3 years 'salary' for a Medico CIEIO) -- will spend what it takes (the Company's funds, of course) to continue their parasitic function, no matter what. I refuse to worry about the death throes of all those possibilities; we are fucked on so many other levels, I'm surprised when my mail (still) arrives just as if we were a normal country. My guess is that Inertia is giving the illusion ... for a time ... that 'we shall overcome' the nuclear damage done by the Bankers, magically solve the perpetual problem of the 50ish Trillion of unfunded mandates (from Soc Sec to Medicare to dozens lesser Official debts) plus the Bush giveaway to Big Pharma of that Part D drug bonanza. But I don't see How all that can happen, with no manufacturing base left. The US, now a Two Class System, is a mere re-marketing arm of those who still make things. We move around mostly paper in all those offices while rebundling even more 'Financial' papers: that meaningless shuffling is called 'work', now. And if most people are doing inherently useless things -??- The plebs aren't informed and (too-) many of those are uninformable -- while the Congress lives for its stipends. It's all surreal, so I'm just going to watch; it's not worth emoting about. IMO, anyone (worth less than a few Mil) who gets sick in Murica will at best be bankrupted, at worst die that much earlier. ( I just may have to get my ass out of here yet, painful as are all those details.) But I'll have to leave while healthy and before the rush. Missing temporal data: what is the rate of the Murican collapse? Wish I knew.. because that phrase in Moyers' intro re Obama and "the present climate" suggests it all: the present climate is Stalemate, and not only in med. Unclear if we shall be 'governable' again and, if so -- when. What Me Worry? Alfred E. Neumann
Post #322,669 by mmoffitt 3/11/10 9:07:32 AM Reply	I didn't watch, I read the transcript of Potter's interview. I am old school that way - prefer reading to watching whenever possible. As far as the "we'll fix this later" argument goes, well, surely you have witnessed how ineffective that is. I think in Potter's interview (but perhaps it was the other) Moyer made the point that the initial Medicare bill was supposed to be "corrected" by later legislation as well. And that, by and large, did not occur. Others have pointed out that this corporate feeding legislation is the legislation that Obama wanted. It's what he worked out in advance in collusion with Wall Street, Big Insurance and Big Pharma. I am not surprised by any of this, of course. Early on I recognized Obama as yan corporate toady (as did Ralph whom I wasted my vote upon). You are quite correct, of course, about "making things." The trouble with "virtual" economies is that they can go away with the flip of a switch and no one will suffer any tangible damage for it. Such is our brand of progress. The only remaining question for me is whether my daughters will live long enough to see the United States rebound. For all my cynicism, there is some residue of optimism. When the dollar collapses, we will become the new Third World and that might cause the wealthy Chinese and Indians to take advantage of our "cheap" labor. We will, of course, in an effort to entice those wealthy foreigners shed the luxurious legislation fit for wealthier states (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, establishment of the EPA, OSHA, etc.) and that will contribute, possibly, to a rebuilding of our manufacturing base. That's some brand of optimism, n'est ce pas? This statement is unprovable. Kurt Goedel
Post #322,675 by SpiceWare 3/11/10 10:46:19 AM Reply	we have manufacturing my prior 2 jobs were at manufacturing companies. http://www.msnbc.msn...30229507/from/ET/ Indeed, the AP writer noted, "For every $1 of value produced in China's factories [in 2007], America generated $2.50." Not bad for a country that doesn't produce anything anymore.
Post #322,680 by boxley 3/11/10 11:10:25 AM Reply	page 37 of the senate bill transfers taxpayer funds directly to the insurance companies as opposed to providers like we currently do with medicare If we torture the data long enough, it will confess. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)
Post #322,714 by mmoffitt 3/11/10 4:36:11 PM Reply	Just as was planned. And the point the physician on Moyer made succinctly. ;0)

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