Krugman Nails It, Limbaugh Lies, The Right Weeps for Health Insurers... Health care reform part six

The debate has moved from frenzied to chaotic to oppressive, but nothing to do but put our heads down and soldier on. As I said to someone on Facebook recently, I've been watching health care experts talk about reform for more than ten years. It's past time to actually do something. We can choose to continue to watch this train wreck in slow motion, or we can enact reforms that may be painful and imperfect but at least start addressing the problems.

First up, Paul Krugman boils things down very nicely; Many of those politicians now worried about cost had no problem adding $1.35 trillion to our deficit by voting for GWBs tax cuts. And by opposing things like mandates and the public option, they look like they are not serious about delivering reform and controlling costs at the same time.


Also in the NYT, some good analysis by David Herszenhorn that brings up some CBO numbers that we're not hearing much about (and lately the CBO has not been a friend to reform efforts -- it's been good at pointing out the cost but doesn't seem able to estimate the cost savings from reform). The CBO recently projected that yes, some people would drop their private insurance for the government plan being proposed. About 9 million, by this estimate. But, the CBO says, "12 million people who would not be enrolled in an employment-based plan under current law would be covered by one in 2016, largely because the mandate for individuals to be insured would increase workers’ demand for insurance coverage through their employer.”


So that doesn't sound too bad for the private insurance industry. Which is good, because a lot of folks who oppose reform are really, really worried that the insurance industry is not going to get a fair shake with reforms. Listen, we heard the same arguments about Medicare when it was introduced. It would destroy the insurance industry, etc. Right now, one of the most profitable lines of businesses for private health insurers is the administration of Medicare plans (which is done by companies like Blue Cross, UnitedHealth, etc.). They make more money on these plans than they do on some of their employer-based plans. So Medicare did not destroy the private insurance industry, in fact, it is a profit center for it. Next argument, please.



On a side note, I recently had a discussion with someone who thought Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were truth-tellers and not hate-mongers. Well, as much as I find it hard to believe, I guess you could say such things are in the eye of the beholder. All I know is this latest line of Rush's, that Obama is a tyrant who wants to impose a totalitarian dictatorship on the US so he can torture people and control their lives, well, it sounds like a whoppin' big, hate-filled lie to me.