Rhetoric vs facts

[DOGS THAT BARK]

--a couple points

1st Healthcare.
We've had plans similiar to Dems already on state levels -here in Ky for one and more recent in Mass. Ever wonder why O and company never bring these up as shining examples.

Can tell you 1st hand in KY it took us years to dig out after it was repealed.

In Mass-- from Boson Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1237112&format=text

In defending his decision to go nuclear, Obama talked about insurance company ?abuses.? He talked about premium hikes in California. He talked about a sick mom in Wisconsin. He even talked (in extremely modest ways) about Republican ideas like tort reform and fighting Medicare fraud.
What Obama didn?t mention was Massachusetts.
In fact, despite having given (based on my calculations) some 57,432 speeches, press conferences, pep talks, pillow talks and interpretive dances on health care in the past 12 months, Obama somehow manages to leave us out of nearly every conversation.
This is telling, because we?re the one state already glowing in the radioactive haze of Romneycare, aka ?ObamaCare: The Beta Version.?
Shouldn?t Obama have been bragging yesterday about bringing the benefits of Bay State reform to all of America?
As we prepare to wander into this coming nuclear winter of hyper-partisan politics - one in which we?re almost certain to see widespread political fatalities among congressional Democrats - I have to ask: If bringing Massachusetts-style ?universal coverage? to America is worth this terrible price, why doesn?t Obama at least mention us once in awhile?
Maybe he thinks of us as the Manhattan Project of medical insurance reform. Too top secret to discuss. More likely, it has something to do with the nightmare results of this government-run debacle. Here are a few ?highlights? of the current status of the Obamacare experiment in Massachusetts:
It?s exploding the budget: Our ?universal? health insurance scheme is already $47 million over budget for 2010. Romneycare will cost taxpayers more than $900 million next year alone.
It?s killing us on costs: Average Massachusetts premiums are the highest in the nation and rising. We also spend 27 percent more on health care services, per capita, than the national average. Those costs, contrary to what we were promised, have been going up faster here than nearly everywhere else.
It?s creating bizarre marketplace mutations: In Massachusetts, ObamaCare 1.0 is such a mess our governor is talking about imposing draconian price controls. He?s even suggested going to ?capitation,? a system where doctors get a fixed amount of money per patient - and then that?s it. Which means it would become in your doctor?s financial interest never to see you again.
All this damage to the taxpayers, the insured and the responsible business owners . . . and for what?
The percentage of uninsured Bay State residents has gone from around 6 percent to around 3 percent.
In other words, it?s a dud.
And now Obama is preparing to drop the Big One on bipartisanship and turn Congress into a political hot zone for the remainder of his presidency, in order to pass a similar plan.
Is it political suicide or just political stupidity? Or is it, as many Obamacare supporters hope, the beginning of a devastating assault on the private sector?
The damage Obamacare would do to the current health care system - where 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care, by the way - could be so great, the only institution big enough to repair it would be the government. The fact that the government inflicted that damage would be a moot point.

 

[kcwolf]

--a couple points

1st Healthcare.
We've had plans similiar to Dems already on state levels -here in Ky for one and more recent in Mass. Ever wonder why O and company never bring these up as shining examples.

Can tell you 1st hand in KY it took us years to dig out after it was repealed.

In Mass-- from Boson Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1237112&format=text

In defending his decision to go nuclear, Obama talked about insurance company ?abuses.? He talked about premium hikes in California. He talked about a sick mom in Wisconsin. He even talked (in extremely modest ways) about Republican ideas like tort reform and fighting Medicare fraud.
What Obama didn?t mention was Massachusetts.
In fact, despite having given (based on my calculations) some 57,432 speeches, press conferences, pep talks, pillow talks and interpretive dances on health care in the past 12 months, Obama somehow manages to leave us out of nearly every conversation.
This is telling, because we?re the one state already glowing in the radioactive haze of Romneycare, aka ?ObamaCare: The Beta Version.?
Shouldn?t Obama have been bragging yesterday about bringing the benefits of Bay State reform to all of America?
As we prepare to wander into this coming nuclear winter of hyper-partisan politics - one in which we?re almost certain to see widespread political fatalities among congressional Democrats - I have to ask: If bringing Massachusetts-style ?universal coverage? to America is worth this terrible price, why doesn?t Obama at least mention us once in awhile?
Maybe he thinks of us as the Manhattan Project of medical insurance reform. Too top secret to discuss. More likely, it has something to do with the nightmare results of this government-run debacle. Here are a few ?highlights? of the current status of the Obamacare experiment in Massachusetts:
It?s exploding the budget: Our ?universal? health insurance scheme is already $47 million over budget for 2010. Romneycare will cost taxpayers more than $900 million next year alone.
It?s killing us on costs: Average Massachusetts premiums are the highest in the nation and rising. We also spend 27 percent more on health care services, per capita, than the national average. Those costs, contrary to what we were promised, have been going up faster here than nearly everywhere else.
It?s creating bizarre marketplace mutations: In Massachusetts, ObamaCare 1.0 is such a mess our governor is talking about imposing draconian price controls. He?s even suggested going to ?capitation,? a system where doctors get a fixed amount of money per patient - and then that?s it. Which means it would become in your doctor?s financial interest never to see you again.
All this damage to the taxpayers, the insured and the responsible business owners . . . and for what?
The percentage of uninsured Bay State residents has gone from around 6 percent to around 3 percent.
In other words, it?s a dud.
And now Obama is preparing to drop the Big One on bipartisanship and turn Congress into a political hot zone for the remainder of his presidency, in order to pass a similar plan.
Is it political suicide or just political stupidity? Or is it, as many Obamacare supporters hope, the beginning of a devastating assault on the private sector?
The damage Obamacare would do to the current health care system - where 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care, by the way - could be so great, the only institution big enough to repair it would be the government. The fact that the government inflicted that damage would be a moot point.

DTB, I highlighted the glaring lies. It almost made me shit-can any effort to reply. Here are the MA facts:

Pundits and politicians who oppose universal healthcare for the nation have a new straw man to kick around - the Massachusetts reform plan that covers more than 97 percent of the state?s residents. In the myth that these critics have manufactured, this state?s plan is bleeding taxpayers dry, creating nothing less than a medical Big Dig.

The facts - according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation - are quite different. Its report put the cost to the state taxpayer at about $88 million a year, less than four-tenths of 1 percent of the state budget of $27 billion. Yes, the state recently had to cut benefits for legal immigrants, and safety-net hospital Boston Medical Center has sued for higher state aid. But that is because the recession has cut state revenues, not because universal healthcare is a boondoggle. The main reason costs to the state have been well within expectations? More than half of all the previously uninsured got coverage by buying into their employers? plans, not by opting for one of the state-subsidized plans.

This should be exciting news for those fiscal conservatives, including both Republicans and ?blue dog?? Democrats, who claim to support the goal of universal coverage while despairing over its budget impact. But that?s not what you hear from the Massachusetts bashers.


It's been convenient for critics of health-care reform to assail the Massachusetts effort. But the Massachusetts effort -- which was focused on coverage, not cost -- worked. It has been a success. It has radically cut the number of uninsured residents. It has come in at about the cost predicted. It has proved popular. And it has given Massachusetts the courage to contemplate much more aggressive cost control than anything that's being consider at the national level, or in another state.

That last bit is important: Doing coverage actually pushed Massachusetts to begin addressing cost. If national health-care reform has a similar effect, it will have been wildly successful.

Back to your article:

The nuclear option was the name used for a republican plan to vote in supreme court judges with a majority vote. It has nothing to do with reconciliation, inspite of Fox using it hundreds of times in reference to reconciliation.:mj07:

57,432 speeches - I'm to believe Obama did this every 6 minutes for an entire year, 6-7 per hour.:mj07: :mj07: :mj07: :mj07: :mj07:

27 percent more on health care services - as compared to what? It can't be compared! :mj07:

where 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care :mj07: Not even close and going down, big, everyday with 30-40% increases coming around the country every month.:mj07:

 

[Chadman]

Ok, thanks for reminding me. Romneycare was a failure. I'll keep that in mind if he's the republican candidate in 2012.

 

[Chadman]

Romney: Mass. Healthcare Plan a Winner
Monday, 21 Sep 2009 12:07 PM Article Font Size
By: Ronald Kessler

Contrary to media reports, Massachusetts? new health insurance plan has managed to cover nearly all residents at minimal additional cost to the state and could be a model for national healthcare reform, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tells Newsmax.

Romney, who devised the plan, cites the Massachusetts plan?s own figures and a report by the non-partisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which has concluded that the claim that the state?s healthcare reform created uncontrollable costs is a ?myth.?

?Despite a public perception that the state?s landmark healthcare reform law has turned out to be unaffordable, a new analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation finds that the cost to taxpayers of achieving near universal coverage has been relatively modest and well within initial projections of how much the state would have to spend to implement reform, in part because many of the newly insured have enrolled in employer-sponsored plans at no public expense,? the foundation?s report, issued in May, says.

Covering more than 97 percent of state residents, the Massachusetts plan currently costs $707 million a year, about half of which comes from the federal government, so the net cost to the state is slightly more than one percent of the state?s total budget, according to an Aug. 26 statement by Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, which oversees the plan and provides an exchange where residents shop for coverage.

While that cost represents an increase of about 10 percent over the initial 2006 projection, Kingsdale says that is because initial estimates of the eligible uninsured population turned out to be too low.

?What we were able to accomplish was to get almost all of our citizens insured without breaking the bank and without having a so-called public option,? Romney says. ?I think the program is a real success and that it can teach lessons to other states, and to the nation.?

Central to the plan was Romney?s recognition that uninsured individuals were costing the state and federal government money because they showed up in emergency rooms for non-emergency care. If they had health insurance, Romney concluded, those government payments to hospitals could be applied to paying to cover the uninsured.

?We said, let?s take the money that the federal government is giving us and that we?re taking from our own state coffers that we use to give to hospitals to give out free care,? ? Romney says. ?Instead, let?s use that money to help low-income people purchase their own private market-based insurance.?

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

- where 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care

How can you say this with a straight face? Take off your GOP glasses and look around. Thanks KC for pointing that out. When DTB posts more than a few sentences, I just pass.

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

What an ironic title to this thread. Nice one, Wayno.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Thank you Gary

--on the 85% like their healthcare--and diff of opinion on article-you all need to take that up with Boston Globe.

--however you might want to peruse DJV thread and do a little-real life- "ciphering" for us on majority being satisfied-
http://www.madjacksports.com/forum/showthread.php?t=400703
:0corn

You'll find that most that are satisified with life are those wanting smaller gov-lower taxes

--then there are those who are never satisfied and that ole gov tit can't get big enough.

--getting back to djv thread. I didn't see the2 of you there.

Give us a short description of why you don't like your healthcare plan and whose fault is it and why.?

 

[Chadman]

As for the imaginary and moveable 85% are happy with their healthcare comment, there is so much to read into that, and examine in that, that it's not a real number. Who did they ask, how did they ask it, etc. Are they truly informed on comparing anything?

For that imaginary 85% number, how many of them pay their entire premiums? How many of them are OBLIVIOUS to how much the people providing it to them pay, and what it's doing to their businesses? How many of those people think, "Hey, I'm taken care of, haven't gone to the hospital in 20 years, I pay $5 on my pills, $10 for my visit to the doctor, it's all good?" And the person providing it for them has had to lay off several of their co-workers in the past 3 years, and soon may have to cancel providing insurance completely, because THEY aren't happy with their insurance plan for their employees because of cost?

How many people who say they are happy with their current insurance setup also complain about how much it costs? And say, well, I'm still happy about my care, but my costs are killing me? Don't admit that a company that is kicking up their premiums - in one year, after showing more than double their usual profit margins for the previous and current years - 35% or MORE?

How many people who WERE happy with their insurance about 3 years ago no longer have it, have worse coverage, or have been denied coverage now, and how many more will be like this soon? People are always happy until something changes for them. And it happens, trust me.

This comment is ALWAYS arguable, undefinable, and open to interpretation and manipulation.