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We all know that the GOP has no plan other than to criticize the Obama proposal on health care reform. RNC chair-in-name-only Michael Steele made it clear no one's home when he went on MSNBC and was asked about any bright alternative proposals the Republicans are planning to bring forth. Here's what he said when asked how to cut costs. Think Progress:
“I’ll give you three,” Steele boasted. The RNC Chairman then listed them off: 1) “You’ve got portability,” 2) “Let’s create co-ops,” and 3) “Let’s make it so that the people who aren’t employed or have an employer at the time can deduct their health care if they’re not getting it through their employer.” But Steele wasn’t done. “I’ll give you an extra one: let’s do tort reform!”
OK. I read that and I don't have to be an expert on health care to point out that he's full of sh*t. Just to take one, #3, is complete garbage because 1) how is a tax deduction going to give you health care for an immediate need and you haven't the money upfront and 2) what does that do to reduce the cost of the health care itself? Joe Scarborough, who ostensibly would agree with Steele, called him on it.
SCARBOROUGH: Those four issues will not cut costs.
STEELE: You’re absolutely wrong! Joe –
SCARBOROUGH: Are you here telling me if we do those four things — (crosstalk) Hold on a second.
STEELE: Please –
SCARBOROUGH: If we do those four steps –
STEELE: Spare me.
SCARBOROUGH: Spare you? Give me a CBO estimate of that then!
Steele never answered his question. The Obama team needs to use clips like this early and often to oppose the fear-mongering, fact-free propaganda coming from the right. It's clear that the GOP has no interest in providing a plausible alternative, only to tear down the proposal at hand, which from my POV hasn't been sold in a clear manner to the public. None of this will help one damn family in financial distress, fearing the next catastrophic illness will bankrupt them. Think Progree debunks each of Steele's proposal items:
1) Portability is a key feature of Obama’s health care plan. Anyone who enters into the new national health insurance exchange would be able to purchase insurance that stays with them, even if they switch jobs.
2) Steele says he’s for co-ops, by which he presumably means “association health plans.” AHPs wouldn’t help cover the uninsured, but would increase the costs of coverage and would allow selected small businesses to operate outside state regulations.
3) Steele’s tax proposal would mean that young and healthy workers would opt out of employer plans for cheaper coverage, meaning employers could no longer meet participation requirements to purchase insurance. The whole insurance system would slowly unravel, leaving even more people without care.
4) Steele’s proposal of tort reform addresses only 0.46 percent of total health care expenditures.
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Live on C-SPANHouse GOP are holding a clusterf*ck filibuster on health care- unlimited 1 minute each representative speeches, one after another, like a mighty pigpile of soundbites and campaign slogans.
Charlie has hidden the remote. Please send help…
It’s important, though,to note that just because Steele opposes it, it doesn’t mean that liberals also shouldn’t oppose it.
Obama’s bill is an epic FAIL as well. It is a massive giveaway to insurance companies. Single payer is the logical liberal solution (and one adopted in one form or another by most other industrialized countries) that brings health care (not health insurance) to their citizens at sustainable cost levels.
Here is a linkto an essay by the Physicians for a National Health Program (a liberal group) explaining why Obama’s plan is nothing more than a bait and switch:
http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/…
Kid you not…Rep Jeff Flake of Arizona just said on the floor of the House that “Wild Horses” was an “old Garth Brooks” song.
OMFG, what a maroon.
You don’t deserve healthcareOnly the rich do, and further it ought to be a way to make insurance execs rich at the same time.
Who says?
God does?
Who says God says?
The Family, official religion of the GOP
RE: Watch Michael Steele do an epic FAIL on health careThe excerpt does not do the entire interview justice. The Republican party definitely needs to come up with a more valid argument, and a defined role in fixing this mess but at the same time clearity from the administration has to be made. It is the only way to garner any support from the general public. The portability function sounds great to me.
My very good friend is a doctor here in South Florida. He chooses not to open his own practice because of the amount of bureacy and liability that he would have to deal with from medicare/medicaid, insurance companies and trying to collect from patients. He told me a scary statistic which is doctors only collect about 25% to 30% of what they bill the insurance and patients.
The system definitely needs to be overhauled, I just dont know what the answer is.
Sam in Ft.Lauderdale
Ft Lauderdale Mortgage
I agree with you thereSingle payer is the only win for people, but no one has the fortitude to do it because of the clear losers who make money from it now. Even with single payer, there’s always going to be a choice to use a private doctor or service.
I guess I don’t buy the“no one has the fortitude to do it” argument. I don’t buy it with regard to gay marriage, and I don’t buy it with single payer.
Obama, of course, is trying to sell the “no one has the fortitude to do it” argument to the bloggers he spoke with yesterday.
Let’s do tort reformIn one of his books (I forget offhand which), Pat Robertson explained that the Old Testament law “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is not really an incitement to revenge but is actually an endorsement of tort reform. So if “God” was for it in the Bronze Age, it must be a good idea for America in the 21st century, right? How could anyone except a godless queer homo Jew commie be against it?
Transparent class warfare I don’t know why the rich and powerful keep running their mouths like anyone believes them anymore. Steele had nothing to refute Scarborough’s claim that each of the points he mentioned would have minimal effects on what is now a dramatically growing exponential cost.
Portability? hahaha. He’s been listening to too much of his own propaganda. And tort reform? You have got to be kidding me. Yea, I mean taking away all the financial regulations did wonders for our economy. In fact, let’s let small children perform neurosurgery. After all, actual trained neurosurgeons are costly, and we can cut costs if we go to small children, or better yet, monkeys.
I know that calling him an idiot would make it seems like an ad hominem, so let’s just say he’s mathematically challenged. Maybe the more accurate statement would be that he advocates policies indicating he believes that some people are more deserving of “life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” than others. i.e. the self appointed sociopathic masters of the universe and their loyal army of possessed zombies. More popularly known as the pigs from Animal Farm.
The reality is that without single-payer, the health care system will continue along it’s present trajectory of exponential cost increases. And we already are rationing. Not giving any health care to over 50 million people is called rationing, no matter how much the Republicans abuse the meaning of words.
As Scarborough mentions in the clip, we spend 25% of all health care dollars in the last year of life. Now I don’t mean to play god or anything, but I have to seriously question the spiritual maturity of a people so afraid of death that they will happily bankrupt their children’s generation just for another six months of “life.”
I found it interesting that when Scarborough pressed Steele about whether a hypothetical 87 year old grandmother should be getting that hip replacement paid for with taxpayer money, Steele repeatedly claimed he didn’t want the government to be making those decisions. Then he basically said that he approved of surgery on demand. As a trans woman, I think that’s a pretty interesting position for Steele to take. Especially since he then topped it off by saying that we have to figure out how to pay for all this without rationing.
I am no Steele fan, but…If this new health care package is so good, then why isn’t Congress going onto the same plan?
You can claim a higher number of exemptions on your W4 form which in turn would give you more take home pay, which could be used to purchase health insurance.
Using the tax deduction, more uninsured Americans could purchase their own health insurance, which would reduce the number of uninsured patients treated by hospitals and reduce the number of people insured by the government.
And why the federal government? If any “government” is going to provide its “citizens” health care, wouldn’t you prefer it to be your state government? I would think they would be more in tune with your local needs.
Please don’t even try to convince me that only the right uses fear-mongering and fact-free propaganda. The left has its fair share of fear mongers and propagandists, too. (Examples can be provided upon request.)
(Repaste of (some) my same comment to your post “President Obama holds blogger conference call on health care reform”)
I can’t believe that Congress and most of the disinformed American public thinks the constitution allows Congress to pass any legislation that takes money from me to pay for health care for my neighbor.
Health care is not a right that the federal government provides to us, or should provide for us. It is a product that everyone needs for their own well being and should work to provide for themselves. We have programs for those who can’t; my mother is a recipient of STATE health care.
If you believe the constitution allows Congress to pass this type of legislation due to the “general welfare” clause, then you don’t understand that the constitution strictly forbids Congress from taking money disproportionately from “We the People”. Even if there were a way to make everyone pay the same amount for the same type of coverage, the constitution still doesn’t allow Congress to pass this type of legislation.
America is a Republic. ”…and to the Republic for which it stands…” It is NOT a Democracy. Or, I should say it is NOT supposed to be a Democracy. More government programs/spending is the problem, not the solution.
Do you actually think that more federal government programs will help America’s health care problems? Ask any local Doctor at Duke and I’m sure they will tell you that the current government regulations and insurance regulations are the problems. Adding more will only worsen it. Not too mention, we just don’t have the money/credit to pay for it.
We need less government intrusions and let the free market do its job. Has America completely given up on the free market in favor of government intrusion and ownership?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… - Around 3 minutes gets into health care.
Here are a few suggestions to help the health care system without government intervention/ownership. (Thanks Will!)
1 Deregulating the health care industry to improve efficiency and choices
2 Allowing consumers to buy only the coverage they desire (many states require insurance providers to provide certain items in any policy they sell)
3 Reducing the number of government mandates and red tape that drives up medical costs
4 Removing barriers to safe, affordable medicines (let informed consumers buy drugs that have been approved overseas; in one example, the FDA delayed approving one heart medication for 10-years when this could have saved 100,000 lives during that time)
5 Increasing access to imported, lower-cost medications
6 Deregulating many medications removing the need/expense for doctor’s consultations to get a prescription
7 Allowing health/insurance providers to offer their products nation-wide rather than on a state-by-state basis to increase options and competition
8 Allowing healthcare “freedom of choice” and leave the treatment decision between a doctor and patient
9 Disallowing abuse of our healthcare system by those here illegally
10 Cutting taxes and entitlement programs significantly to allow citizens to obtain affordable healthcare options best suited for their needs
11 Allowing private-sector and charitable organizations with expertise in the matter to lead medical research initiatives; let the government focus on its congressionally-mandated duties
12 Discouraging frivolous lawsuits driving up medical costs
13 Encouraging Medical Savings Accounts
14 Reducing certain taxes imposed on medical services to cut the overall health care costs
15 Allowing citizens to be uninsured
If you haven’t seen this blog, may I suggest you read a few of the posts and become a daily scanner? http://theblacksphere.net/site…
No one deserves health careSo who made the poor so special? And why is it the rich man’s obligation to provide them health care? America is a Republic, not a Socialist country. (…and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands…)
Do you REALLY want to help the poor have health insurance? Then get the government out of health care. ALL THE WAY OUT! Ask any doctor and he/she will tell you that government regulations, intrusions and ownership are the problem, not the solution.