NYT: Public overwhelmingly supports public option for healthcare.

[holygoat]

Originally Posted by ewsieg

I guess I don't understand why it's a right just because it benefits society. I understand why gov't might want to do it if it benefits society, but it doesn't mean it's a right.

The public education example doesn't wash in this case, because it's not run by the federal government. It is a system of local entities, each empowered to sculpt their system to fit their particular region. Some are more successful than others, but their is no single Federal entity running public education like there will be with National Health Care.

It's interesting to note how the opinions of people change when faced with the possible consequences (pdf) of certain policy possibilities:

Would you favor or oppose requiring employers to either offer health insurance or pay money into a government pool?

Favor: 71%
Oppose: 26%


What if you heard that paying for this may cause some employers to lay off some workers?

Still Favor: 29%
Oppose: 64%

One way that health experts have proposed trying to slow the growth of health insurance premiums is to establish a new independent federal scientific body which would decide whether approved new medical technology, procedures, and drugs should be covered by insurance, based on whether they are proven to be more effective than existing, less expensive treatments. Would you favor or oppose this?

Favor: 66%
Oppose: 33%


This might mean that in some cases, treatments or drugs recommended by a person’s own doctor wouldn’t be covered by their health insurance. Having heard that, would you favor or oppose having a new federal scientific body
decide whether new treatments and drugs should be covered by insurance, or not?

Still Favor: 32%
Oppose: 63%

Opponents of ObamaCare need to hammer points like these home. People hear "public health" and they immediately think "free health care". The consequences are never reported, so it's up to opponents to do the heavy lifting. This can be beaten.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by holygoat

The public education example doesn't wash in this case, because it's not run by the federal government. It is a system of local entities, each empowered to sculpt their system to fit their particular region. Some are more successful than others, but their is no single Federal entity running public education like there will be with National Health Care.

But, as I understand it, there is some kind of federal role in education isn't there?

Your healthcare system could be done in the same sort of way if you wanted it to be you know.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by Blue Square Thing

That's entirely what happens all over the world - doctors or whoever miss a diagnosis.

It has really not a lot at all to do with over or under testing as a phenomena within the healthcare system.

Well, overtesting was one of the points of that McAllen article.

Still need to find that refuting article. It was kind of late last night so didn't look.

[Melody]

This isn't the one I'm thinking of because it doesn't show the charts I saw, but addresses some of the issues: McAllen, Texas Docs Defend Region’s Healthcare Spending - www.healthleadersmedia.com

For starters, said society president James Stewart, MD, a McAllen internist, Hidalgo County has the lowest average income of any county in the nation, which means it is the poorest. Because of that, as well as its proximity to the border, it is beset with more than its share of health challenges. It has high numbers of uninsured, high numbers of undocumented immigrants, and a high percentages of people who, when they are diagnosed with an illness, their providers learn they have never seen a physician.

and

The physicians showed photographs of how many of their patients live, in meager buildings in the colonias where drinking water supplies can easily become contaminated with sewage, and where housing often lacks basic plumbing or air conditioning. Instead of bathrooms, residents use latrines.

Because of that, Stewart acknowledged, hospitals may keep patients in the hospital for a few days longer than they need to be there, because they know if they discharge them to a home that is not clean, their wounds will soon become infected and they may come right back into the hospital with hard-to-treat infections.

[holygoat]

Originally Posted by Blue Square Thing

But, as I understand it, there is some kind of federal role in education isn't there?

But as you also understand it, that role is nowhere near the role which Obama is lobbying for them to take in health care and it's not even close. It's like saying Robert Smith exerted the same influence over Siouxsie And The Banshees as he did over The Cure.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by holygoat

But as you also understand it, that role is nowhere near the role which Obama is lobbying for them to take in health care and it's not even close. It's like saying Robert Smith exerted the same influence over Siouxsie And The Banshees as he did over The Cure.

I'm not necessarily advocating Obama's approach to healthcare either.

[sinister porpoise]

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a Texas three-judge District Court.

The Supreme Court's decision held that a school-financing system based on local property taxes was not an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. The majority opinion stated that the appellees did not sufficiently prove that education is a fundamental right or that the financing system was subject to strict scrutiny.

The District Court had decided that education is a fundamental right and that the financing system was subject to strict scrutiny.

[chasfh]

Originally Posted by holygoat

The public education example doesn't wash in this case, because it's not run by the federal government.

That's completely beside the point I was making.

[billms]

So! You don't deny it do you?

[sinister porpoise]

free market!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/bu...gewanted=print

Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured. [...]

Mr. Yurdin learned the hard way.

At St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, where he went for two separate heart procedures last year, the hospital’s admitting office looked at Mr. Yurdin’s coverage and talked to Aetna. St. David’s estimated that his share of the payments would be only a few thousand dollars per procedure.

He and the hospital say they were surprised to eventually learn that the $150,000 hospital coverage in the Aetna policy was mainly for room and board. Coverage was capped at $10,000 for “other hospital services,” which turned out to include nearly all routine hospital care — the expenses incurred in the operating room, for example, and the cost of any medication he received.

In other words, Aetna would have paid for Mr. Yurdin to stay in the hospital for more than five months — as long as he did not need an operation or any lab tests or drugs while he was there.

[billms]

It is Mr. Yurdin's fault for not reading the policy, its addends, and the semi-annual updates sent in the mail and posted to the web. Don't tax me to pay for the mistakes of the lower class suckers.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by billms

It is Mr. Yurdin's fault for not reading the policy, its addends, and the semi-annual updates sent in the mail and posted to the web. Don't tax me to pay for the mistakes of the lower class suckers.

Of course, if the edgeyakashun system was better then they'd know about having to read it and all.

I blame the government. But then I usually do.

[CMRivdog]

I think it must be getting very cold in Hell...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/he...gewanted=print

Wal-Mart Says It Backs a Mandate on Insurance

WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, joined hands with a major labor union Tuesday to endorse the idea of requiring large companies to provide health insurance to their workers, a move that gives a boost to President Obama as he is pushing for health legislation on Capitol Hill.

“Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution,” Wal-Mart’s chief executive, Michael T. Duke, wrote in a letter to White House and Congressional officials, adding that he favored “an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage.”

The letter was issued jointly with Andrew W. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents two million workers, many of them in the health care industry, and John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition to the presidency and leads the Center for American Progress, a Democratic policy organization here.

But Wal-Mart’s embrace of the employer mandate may come at a price. In its letter, the company says that if Congress imposes a requirement that employers offer insurance, it must also offer a guarantee to business that health care costs will in fact be contained, perhaps through a so-called trigger mechanism that would impose reductions if certain spending targets were not met.

“We’re for an employer mandate, but we believe that it has to be accompanied by these measures that are really going to deliver on the savings,” said Leslie A. Dach, Wal-Mart’s top lobbyist, who met with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the proposal. “If any business is going to be asked to take on an employer mandate, to face changes in the tax laws, there should be some sense that the promise of the bill to reduce health costs will actually occur.”

The employer mandate is central to Mr. Obama’s plan for expanding health coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured, but many companies, including Wal-Mart, have long resisted the idea. But as health legislation moves through Congress, representatives of industry are becoming increasingly convinced that they must join forces with the administration to have a seat at the negotiating table.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by CMRivdog

I think it must be getting very cold in Hell...

Looks like they think it'll happen and want to influence how it happens.

Prolly quite a sensibly pragmatic approach.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by sinister porpoise

free market!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/bu...gewanted=print

Did you read the whole article? The guy bought a LIMITED BENEFIT PLAN! My daughter had one of these when she was working part-time. It was all that was available to part-timers, and very inexpensive. She had it just so that she'd have coverage in case she broke her leg and needed it set or something similar. She could have kept the policy when she moved to full time with a reduction in premiums, but chose to upgrade to better insurance and pay more.

I can't imagine a college educated 64 year old man with a heart condition choosing a limited benefit policy unless he was only looking at the premiums and not the coverage charts. And I guarantee you that he got a whole lot back out of even that policy than he invested in it.

[sinister porpoise]

Originally Posted by Melody

Did you read the whole article? The guy bought a LIMITED BENEFIT PLAN! My daughter had one of these when she was working part-time. It was all that was available to part-timers, and very inexpensive. She had it just so that she'd have coverage in case she broke her leg and needed it set or something similar. She could have kept the policy when she moved to full time with a reduction in premiums, but chose to upgrade to better insurance and pay more.

I can't imagine a college educated 64 year old man with a heart condition choosing a limited benefit policy unless he was only looking at the premiums and not the coverage charts. And I guarantee you that he got a whole lot back out of even that policy than he invested in it.

I have a really hard time understanding why a plan would cover $150,000 for room-and-board and $10,000 for everything else unless there was an intent to deceive the customer

btw, as far as reading the entire article

Insurers like Aetna generally defend limited-benefit policies as a byproduct of the nation’s flawed health care system, which they say makes it too expensive to adequately insure someone like Mr. Yurdin.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by sinister porpoise

I have a really hard time understanding why a plan would cover $150,000 for room-and-board and $10,000 for everything else unless there was an intent to deceive the customer

btw, as far as reading the entire article

So? The reason why my daughter had a limited benefit policy was because she decided that it was too expensive to buy a comprehensive policy. The part-time employee paid the entire cost of the coverage, by the way. It was something like $28 a month. It wasn't overly risky for her to have this type of coverage for a limited time because she is young and healthy and doesn't lead a particularly risky lifestyle. It was very clear what coverage she had in the material Aetna provided her.

If she had a heart condition or asthma or similar, we would have been foolish not to go COBRA on her and keep her on my husband's policy for the time period between when she left school and found a full time job. That would have cost close to $2K a month. Why is it that expensive? Well, because typically only those with medical issues are willing to pay it.