Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (121112)	3/1/2010 9:39:12 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

and you could-ng/g-

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (121112)	3/2/2010 8:51:56 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Harold Ford has dropped out of the NY Senate Race. He sounds like he thinks the GOP will win no matter who runs. I like Harold, but he can't afford another loss.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (121112)	3/2/2010 4:10:22 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Don't bust a gut laughing at this one. Obama open to adding GOP ideas to health plan AP – President Barack Obama speaks at Savannah Technical College in Savannah, Ga., Tuesday, March 2, 2010. … By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer – 16 mins ago WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was open to four new Republican proposals on health care legislation, in a gesture of bipartisanship meant to jump-start his stalled drive to overhaul the system. Obama detailed the ideas, all of which were raised at a bipartisan health care summit last week, in a letter to congressional leaders. In a nod to his 2008 presidential rival, Obama also said he had eliminated a special deal for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Florida and other states that drew criticism at the summit from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The proposals Obama listed are: sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud and waste; expanding medical malpractice reform pilot programs; increasing payments to Medicaid providers and expanding the use of health savings accounts. "I said throughout this process that I'd continue to draw on the best ideas from both parties, and I'm open to these proposals in that spirit," wrote Obama, who will make remarks Wednesday at the White House on a path forward for his legislation. He rejected the GOP's preferred approach of scrapping the existing sweeping overhaul bills and starting afresh with step-by-step changes. "I also believe that piecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage," Obama wrote. Obama's announcement did not appear to win over any Republicans, and the Senate GOP leader warned of reprisals in this fall's midterms elections if the Democrats go forward. Nor is there any guarantee that Democratic leaders will agree to incorporate the administration's suggestions in revised legislation. But it could give wavering Democrats political cover by showing the White House has been willing to compromise in the wake of last week's summit. "We're anxious to get health care done, which we will get done," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after Obama released the letter. Democrats proceed at their own political peril, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "I want to assure our Democratic friends that if they are somehow able to pass this bill in the House, it will be the issue in every race in America," McConnell said. At its core the Democrats' legislation would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans over 10 years with a first-time mandate for nearly everyone to buy insurance and a host of new requirements on insurers and employers. However, the package soon to reach the House will be less expensive than the one that passed in November and will contain no government-run insurance program to compete with private insurers, making it more appealing to some moderates. Obama said he was open to these four GOP ideas: _Conducting undercover investigations of Medicare and Medicaid providers to search for waste, fraud and abuse, an idea put forth by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., at least week's summit. • Experimenting with specialized health courts as an alternative to jury trials in medical malpractice cases to cut down on defensive medicine. That idea has been promoted both by Democrats and Republicans, including Coburn and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., who attended the summit. The approach calls for an expert judge — not a jury — to hear the evidence and make a final determination in cases where a patient has suffered harm. Trial lawyers are strongly opposed to the concept. Months ago, Obama budgeted $23 million for states to experiment with alternatives to malpractice litigation, but at the time he stopped short of endorsing health courts. The president now says he wants to more than double the budget for state experiments to $50 million. _Obama also agreed that health savings accounts would be offered in new markets his plan sets up for individuals and small business to purchase coverage. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., brought up the idea at the summit. The president said he's open to the tax-sheltered accounts, which go hand-in-hand with high-deductible health insurance policies. Premiums on those policies are lower than for regular health insurance, and people who have them use the health savings accounts to pay their out-of-pockets costs. _Obama also suggested increasing reimbursements to Medicaid providers, a concern raised by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. As expected, the changes did not appear to win over Republicans. "That's just one thing," Coburn said of the president's desire to incorporate his proposal. "We need to start over," Coburn said, contending the bill doesn't address underlying issues of health care costs and quality. Grassley said Obama's willingness to include his idea didn't change his opposition to the overall legislation. "There are other things more important," like its lack of caps on liability damages and its inclusion of an individual mandate, he said. Democrats argue that the GOP calls to scrap the existing legislation and start anew further their argument that Republicans have been unreasonably opposed to almost any compromise, justifying the White House decision to push for passage with no GOP help at all. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said he hadn't seen Obama's proposal to eliminate the provision he championed to let about 800,000 Florida seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans keep their extra benefits. But, Nelson said, "I do not think it should be removed."

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (121112)	3/2/2010 4:35:35 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

March 2, 2010 Treacherous Waters How Obamacare Kills Real Health Care Reform By SHAMUS COOKE It’s difficult to understand a subject when those explaining it are motivated not by truth, but profit. In the case of health care, both Democrats and Republicans have huge financial incentives to obscure, mislead, or lie. Instead of common sense and honesty directing the debate, bags of money facilitate the conversation, funneled in from the health care industry via lobbyists into Congressmen’s pockets. This is the real reason that Obama’s “health care summit” was full of free-market jargon, staged debate and fake rage. The majority of working people in this country are completely alienated from this nonsense, and are growing progressively hostile to the lies of both parties and their respective media mouthpieces. Polls continue to show rising opposition to the Democrats’ health care shenanigans, while showing no upgrade in status for the Republicans. The ability for millions of people to see through the muddle in Washington points to a larger distrust of the two-party system. Even as “progressive Democrats” and other liberal pundits bow before the health care industry by urging passage of “an imperfect” health care bill, workers, the poor and the elderly aren’t taking the bait. And why should they? The Democrats want millions of uninsured people to be mandated into buying crappy health insurance from the most hated companies in existence, where co-pays, premiums and other fees will prevent millions from benefiting from their new, shoddy health care. This individual mandate is reason enough to solidly reject Obama’s health care scheme, but it’s just the beginning. The Democrats don’t like to talk about how their health care vision slashes Medicare. The New York Times explains in detail how Obama’s new plan attacks Medicare; here are some examples: “President Obama’s budget would make a down payment toward his goal of covering the uninsured, and he would pay for it in part by cutting federal payments [Medicare] to hospitals, insurance companies and drug companies.” Later, the article reads: “Mr. Obama said he would save $176 billion over 10 years by cutting Medicare payments to health insurance companies that provide comprehensive care to more than 10 million of the 44 million Medicare beneficiaries.” And: “Mr. Obama also proposed squeezing $37 billion out of the [Medicare] payments to home health agencies over the next decade.” (February 26, 2010). The article fails to connect these blandly stated numbers with the gigantic human suffering that will result. All that seems to matter is that the “uninsured will be [poorly] insured,” not that those currently receiving quality services will have their health care stripped from them. Equally disastrous is the bi-partisan consensus over health care rationing. The Democrats plan aims to save billions of dollars by simply providing less health care. In fact, rationing health care is the philosophical backbone of the Democrats’ plan, which amounts to boosting the profits of health care corporations by allowing them to provide less service. In Obama’s recently released plan, a large section is entitled “policies to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.” The mainstream media and both political parties have made it abundantly clear that “waste” means “excessive tests and procedures that doctors routinely perform.” In essence, this means that the “new normal” for health care will be less tests and less procedures for those mandated to pay for corporate health care. Of course these measures will continue to be performed for those who can afford more expensive plans. Contrary to the foolish accusations of the Republicans, the Democrats health care bill does not represent “the government takeover of health care,” but the corporate takeover. The fact that this corporate coup is being conducted through the hands of government only proves that both political parties are wholly owned by the corporations. Federally run Medicare and state run Medicaid are being slashed, pushing soon-to-be mandated people into the corporate sphere, where services will be cut to push up profits. Another way that the corporate takeover of health care will be achieved is through the tax on so called “Cadillac health care plans.” Employers will be taxed for offering their workers quality health care after a certain threshold; the worse the health care offered, the lower the tax. Labor unions correctly interpreted the tax to be an attack on their health care plans, since union workers typically have better health care plans than the unorganized. Sadly, many labor leaders agreed not to fight this tax after Obama “compromised” by raising the tax threshold and delaying its implementation until 2018. But to think that such a tax can be ignored until 2018 is a perilous delusion. Employers will use every contract negotiation until 2018 to attack health care plans, so that the plans are below the threshold by the time the tax kicks in. Those employers without a unionized workforce will simply drop their health care plans and force their workers into the treacherous waters of Obama’s health care mandate. Both political parties love this idea. And despite the Republicans furious playacting, they are giddy that the Democrats have adopted long held conservative Republican beliefs about health care. This is what the Wall Street Journal said about the health care summit: “To listen to President Obama and his closest Democratic allies, you'd think John McCain had won the election and their bill had been drafted by Paul Ryan, Tom Coburn and the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute [a rightwing think tank].” (February 26, 2010). The above-described dynamics will drastically alter the health care landscape in the U.S. The high standards of health care embodied in Medicare and union plans are being undermined, setting a much lower standard nationally. Once these plans are killed, the corporate vultures will swoop in with their “individual mandate” to make billions of dollars, while the threshold for “quality care” will be lowered drastically with the mass rationing of health care. Anyone interested in saving health care must fight the Democrats’ plans, while demanding that Medicare be extended to everyone. To ensure that Medicare is financially sound, taxes on the wealthy and corporations must be raised, while the health care monopoly corporations should be nationalized and run as public utilities. These ideas can be made a reality only through the united and organized effort of the Labor Movement, retiree organizations, community groups and anyone else interested in saving and extending real health care in the U.S. Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com