A certain former half-term governor of Alaska this week apparently renewed bogus allegations that the Affordable Care Act includes "death panels." Earlier today, Sen. John Barasso (R-Wy.) appeared on MSNBC and was asked if accepts this kind of talk. He wouldn't answer.
This isn't complicated. Barasso could have knocked down this nonsense in five words: "There are no death panels." But he couldn't bring himself to do the right thing.
Instead, he said, "There is a portion of the law, the Independent Payments Advisory Board, [where] unelected bureaucrats are going to determine how much, if anything, is paid for different kinds of care in this country — very little way for Congress to overrule that."
For anyone confused -- and apparently, that includes members of the Senate -- let's set the record straight (again).
As Paul Krugman explained a while back, "Arguably the most important thing we can do to limit the growth in health care costs is learning to say no; we cannot afford a system in which Medicare in particular will pay for anything, especially when that's combined with an industry structure that gives providers a strong financial incentive to engage in excessive care."
To address this, the Obama administration wants IPAB, as part of the Affordable Care Act, to make the difficult decisions, free of the political process on Capitol Hill, precisely because Congress has failed so spectacularly in its ability to make these choices on its own. The board, made up of experts who would require Senate confirmation, would get to work in 2014.
Why would Republicans say they want to lower costs and cut spending, then oppose a panel that would lower costs and cut spending? It has to do the GOP's larger goal: scrapping Medicare altogether.
Both parties agree that Medicare faces long-term financial difficulties, and that addressing the problem is no easy task. Democrats have proposed measures like IPAB, which will limit unnecessary spending and lower overall Medicare costs, thus shoring up the program's finances.
Republicans have an alternative proposal: scrap Medicare, starting handing out vouchers that won't keep up with rising costs, and tell seniors to get sick less often.
The GOP opposes IPAB in large part, because they're afraid the Democratic idea might work, and make the Republican goal of Medicare privatization that much less likely to happen. Since scrapping Medicare is the ultimate GOP goal anyway, IPAB's efficacy would be a hindrance, not a benefit.
For whatever reason, Barasso neglected to mention these relevant details on the air this morning.
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Does Sen. Barasso know that there are already "unelected bureaucrats" determining what if any care a person gets?
They're called "health insurance companies" and "hospital administrators".
Which sounds a LOT like a death panel if you ask me. If a "health insurance company" sets a benefit cap on an individual, couldn't you say a death panel instituted that cap?
"They're called "health insurance companies" and "hospital administrators" "
Duh grumpy!
I was just spelling it out for the slow among us... *glances significantly toward Shooter and his ilk*
Well that was fast. We went from healthcare as a civil right several threads ago to 'our committee will decide what you can receive'. How do you folks deal with the whiplash? Is it covered under the IPAB?
Heh.
It's YOUR committees, your buddies in the corporations, that are already making that choice. IPAB would cut wasteful spending within the system, without some GOP asshat saying "wait, that can't go, that lets those companies funnel some of that 'wasted money' to my re-election! It must stay!" It has no say on individual care... but you know that already and are choosing to ignore it.
I'm not quite sure why everyone is getting excited about. Here's the power of IPAB:
http://www.mainemed.com/pubs/5-17-10_MMWU.pdf
The Board seems pretty powerless to me
10 Things Mr. Barasso Miss About Obamacare
1) Access to health insurance for 30 million Americans and lower premiums. More than 30 million uninsured Americans will find coverage under the law. Middle-class families who buy health care coverage through the exchanges will be eligible for refundable and advanceable premium credits and cost-sharing subsidies to ensure that the coverage they have is affordable.
2) The ability of businesses and individuals to purchase comprehensive coverage from a regulated marketplace. The law creates new marketplaces for individuals and small businesses to compare and purchase comprehensive coverage. Insurers will have to meet quality measures to ensure that Americans can access comprehensive coverage when they need it.
3) Insurers’ inability to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Beginning in 2014, insurers can no longer deny insurance to families or individuals with pre-existing conditions. Insurers are also prohibited from placing lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage and rescinding insurers except in cases of fraud. Insurers are already prohibited from discriminating against children with pre-existing conditions.
4) Tax credits for small businesses that offer insurance. Small employers that purchase health insurance for employees are already receiving tax credits to encourage them to continue providing coverage.
5) Assistance for businesses that provide health benefits to early retirees.The law created a temporary reinsurance program for employers providing health insurance coverage to retirees over age 55 who are not eligible for Medicare, reimbursing employers or insurers for 80% of retiree claims. The program has offered at least $4.73 billion in reinsurance payments to more than 2,800 employers and other sponsors of retiree plans, with an average cumulative reimbursement per plan sponsor of approximately $189,700.
6) Affordable health care for lower-income Americans. Obamacare extends Medicaid to individuals with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line, guaranteeing that the nation’ most vulnerable population has access to affordable, comprehensive coverage.
7) Investments in women’s health. Obamacare prohibits insurers from charging women substantially more than men and requires insurers to offer preventive services — including contraception — at no additional cost.
8) Young adults’ ability to stay on their parents’ health care plans. More than 3.1 million young people have already benefited from dependent coverage, which allows children up to age 26 to remain insured on their parents’ plans.
9) Discounts for seniors on brand-name drugs. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to provide a 50% discount on prescriptions filled in the Medicare Part D coverage gap. Seniors have already saved $3.5 billion on prescription drug costs thanks to the Affordable Care Act provision.
10) Temporary coverage for the sickest Americans. The law established temporary national high-risk pools that are providing health coverage to individuals with pre-existing medical conditions who cannot find insurance on the individual market. In 2014, they will be able to enroll in insurance through the exchanges. 67,482 individuals have already benefited from the program.
source: Think Progress / pass it on by Twitt or Tumblr or post it.
And all that new coverage is going to reduce the deficit right? Only in liberal dreams.
So you think that the Congressional Budget Office is made up of liberal dreamers?
Here's a free clue for you Shooter: Almost every other developed nation has lower public health care costs than the US while covering everyone.
Admittedly, the US wouldn't see that level of savings without going to a socialised or single-payer system.
Now, once again, we see the REAL strategy of Republicans/conservatives: Government is bad. Period. So anything they can do to make it appear that government is inefficent, wasteful, etc it will do. Think Post Office. Think Medicare, Social Security. Good programs made to look bad under Rep. leadership!
No, sometimes it's wonderful. Prisons, for instance. Also the military. And of course there are the paramilitary police forces, which act like the military and put people in prisons.
Or regulations. Regulations are bad, unless they're regulating abortion providers or other women's health facilities.
Transfer payments are bad, too. Transfer payments turn people into lazy worthless drones dependent on the government teat. The exception is transfer payments to essential industries such as agribusiness or coal.
And so on.
With all the shrill, incessant shrieking about health care I have one simple question:
WHY are health care costs so high?
If, as I suspect, they have been inflated to this unconscionable extreme by the insurance companies and/or the alleged health care "providers - why aren't the assorted congresscritters threatening congressional investigation of the health care providers for blatant market manipulation?
I know, I know - who would pay for those poor congresscritter's reelection campaigns if we shut down those insurance company / health care folks income stream?
The question is simple, the answer not so much.
Plenty of contributing factors, including way too much use of automobiles. And junk food in supersized portions. And television.
And pollution.
Then there is the cultural practice of having so many of us die in ICU after spending weeks there without recovering consciousness.
Of course, having the insurance companies skim off about 20% of all healthcare spending doesn't help. Nor does our fee-for-service "system" which pays specialists much, much more than it does primary providers. Nor, for that matter, the spiffy way we not only give pharmaceutical companies long-lived monopolies (and rig the system to let them extend them) but prohibits major purchasers from using market power to negotiate lower prices.
It's a very, very long list.
I'm sorry, I've got health insurance, and those bureaucrats tell me NO when they don't want to pay for stuff either! Sister Sarah, take the money go home and SHUT UP! Why anyone asks your opinion is far beyond me and why anyone even listens to your lies and fantasy - means that they're right there with you - and all of you need to be locked in a padded room driving each other more crazy!
WHY are health care costs so high?
Well, health care requires specialized professionals who train long and hard. It also requires complicated and state-of-the-art machinery and devices and the people trained to use them effectively. So heath care SHOULD be expensive to an extent. Notice that none of that included insurance professionals. They know nothing about how to do health care. They crunch numbers. They can go insure something else. And let the expensive real healthcare be paid for in a collective called the "public".... like other "too expensive for individuals" things: National highways, bridges, levees, dams... like they are paid for. That's a real "option"
It's the death panel myth that won't die. Unfortunately, propagating this myth has resulted in many confused Americans. From Colorado Public News:
http://www.cpt12.org/news/index.php/death-panel-myth-persists/
I'm more inclined to believe that under the Republican plan (well, there isn't one, but if there were) we would have "Vagina Panels."
Subtle but important distinction:
Rape-Public-CON Sen. Barasso (R-Wy ask Wy) isn't confused; he's trying to confuse.
FTFY. You're welcome...
;-)
The glee and joyous rhetoric coming from Mitt Romney, John Boehner and the entire Republican Party over what they claim is the pending destruction of health care reform is sick on many levels, but especially because these partisan fools have no plan to replace a law made up of parts that are both extremely popular with the public and are vital to ensuring economic growth and basic medical care. If Mitt and his rich friends had their way, we would throw more people off of health insurance instead of working to get everyone covered. That's the way of choice for the corporate elite to get rid of the working class riff-raff before they cause too much trouble. Literally kill them off... http://www.sunstateactivist.org
I think Palin's comments are pretty clear:
"Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of [supreme court justices] who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding"
she might not know all of them by face or name
Palin is more interested in keeping her name in the press by spewing her typical fear-inciting hyperbole than she is in contributing any meaningful, substantive input to a serious, rational discussion on health care reform legislation.
Socialistic tyranny? Fascist dictatorships? Death panels? Internment camps? Foreign birth certificates? They're all part of a common pattern.
The problem is that the most vocal opponents of the reform legislation really do not care whether what they are espousing is factually correct. They will gladly embrace the lies and distortions if these fallacies provide a vehicle for venting their pent up hatred against anything and everything with the Obama stamp on it.
The whole notion that the Affordable Care Act will lead to "Soylent Green-style" euthanasia of the elderly and the infirmed is a part of a coordinated campaign by right wing pundits and lobbyists for the health insurance industry to use fear-mongering and disinformation to sway public opinion. The Congressional GOP has shown itself to be a puppet of this industry with their desire to perpetuate these myths.
Palin, Bachmann, and their tea party minions have made the following mantra one of main objectives in their quest to damage the downtrodden and further weaken the financial viability of the middle class:
Destroy "ObamaCare", because the government has no business regulating the private health care insurance industry. And because the government has no right to kill grandma. That's the job of your HMO or PPO.
Something tells me we are going to be asking "again?" quite a lot.
I will say again "single payer should not be off the table". I commend Lawrence O'Donnell for his rewrite segment tonight. I even predicted what the tease was about.
The uninsured are not going to be outraged tomorrow, no matter what the SCOTUS ruling may be. The Dems touting ACA was wrong to say "health care for all". When you have no extra money, "affordable" health care is out of reach. Perhaps an excise tax and/or payroll tax would be better.
I honestly do not know why Republicans oppose this, as their donors, Insurance industry & Pharma get more customers.
It would have been better to make this basic Medicare for all, then supplemental if you can afford it. I do not always watch O'Donnell, but found myself nodding and agreeing with him tonight.
Once again, Sandy, you are spot on! I, for one, have been putting off having some needed medical testing done for a while now because I don't have the "extra" money for the required co-pays (spending it, as I do, on frivolous luxuries like housing, food, transportation and the like). But the insurance provider selected by my employer (lucky me, at that) continues to be paid, regardless...
:(
Pretzel, I strongly encourage you to (locate even a free clinic if you must) have yourself checked by a doctor. I can't stand repeating this, but it's relevant. My brother put it off and he is gone. Please try to find a way to fit in a visit to the doc, even if you have to go to a free clinic.
I am an oncology nurse. I spend a lot of my day away from patient care trying to get authorizations for various tests, procedures, and chemotherapy drugs. We already have death panels. They are called insurance companies. If you don't have insurance, well, you might get public aid, but there are limits on that, too. (We don't want our govmint wasting tax dollars on riff-raff like your grandma, now do we?) Medicare will cover the first 80% - but after that, Grandma, you may be on your own.
I read recently that the CEO's of some health insurance companies make as much as $36,000 PER DAY. Apparently it is profitable to be on a death panel.