Health Sare Slideshow

In my blog I have talked about the views and statements of public figures on health care, but I have never shown the viewpoints of average people and what they want for health care reform. That is why for my final post I’ve decided to focus on what my peers think of the current health care debate and health care reform in general. I found that while most of them weren’t too knowledgeable on the subject, most of them supported reform and universal health care. I originally tried to make this story into a Vuvox presentation, but I found out that it wouldn’t let me add text so I have the original slideshow from Flickr as well.

Flickr Photo Set

Vuvox Presentation

The Untrue Cost of Health Care

For many months now the Republicans have been trotting out the same talking points, which have caused the health care debate to become stale. However, just this past week a new one has come along just hours after the Congressional Budget Office released their new report on the current health care legislation in the Senate. Senate Budget Committee member Judd Gregg, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, claimed that the new bill would eventually cost Americans $2.5 trillion. Several other Republican senators then quoted his figure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was quoted saying it in the blog TheHill.com. From there it was quoted in a USAToday piece. In a few days the quote had spread like wildfire. A Google News search for “Senate health care $2.5 trillion” shows already nearly 250 separate articles. A few of them are debunking Gregg’s estimate, but for the most part, news writers are accepting it as fact. But where did this figure come from?

Republican Senator Judd Gregg with President Obama and Vice President Biden

According to Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo, he pretty much made this number up. While there have been previous attempts by both sides to fudge the numbers in order for them to work in their favor, this attempt goes beyond that. Beutler tries to figure out how Gregg came up with this number, even pointing out the part of the cost that gets hidden by Democrats. But he eventually decides that Gregg is lying and says that hidden cost won’t account for the $1.7 trillion more than Obama’s announced spending cap of $900 billion. In another article published later in the week, Beutler points out that the Republicans had come up with a smaller but still outrageous cost estimate before that also turned out to be a lie.

Most of the Republican talking points that turned out to be false still had a massive impact on the debate and hindered support for reform. But this one has the most potential to stop the bill from passing. While many talking points are simply ridiculous, such as Sarah Palin’s claim of death panels, this one seems sensible to someone who doesn’t have the time to investigate the claim. And most people, probably including senators, won’t investigate it. With the vote on the bill coming ever closer, this lie just may be what swings crucial votes to “no” and thus kill health care reform for the present.

Now is this plan true?

In my previous blog post on Wednesday I posted a video of Stew Jenkins, the secretary for the San Luis Obispo Democratic County Central Committee, being interviewed on the Democratic Party’s plan for health care reform. During his interview he made a few promises and specific points which seemed nearly too good to be true. The purpose of this blog post will be to look at these points in depth and to verify the accuracy of Jenkins’ claims.

His first claim is in response to the question, what should be done about health care in America? He says that the Democrats will keep the good parts of the current health care system and make the entire system affordable for all Americans. The first question that this answer raises is what exactly does the Democratic Party consider to be the good parts of current health care system? A quick look at the official Democratic Party’s website finds that they don’t mention exactly and in detai what they want to see continue. The best guess at this would be that they want to continue having competition. However, they don’t provide a good source of information to confirm this and elaborate on it as well. In fact, the easiest source of information is my blog, where I have pointed out that the Democrats’ plan involves keeping the private health care system in addition to the public option and taking special measures to ensure that the private industry will still continue to thrive. However, one of the reasons that the Democrats pushed for health care reform was because of their claim that the health insurance industry was thriving too much at the great expense of the average American. If the old system had competition but still resulted in people being unable to afford health care, then it doesn’t make sense that the Democrats would consider it a good thing.

Jenkins mentioned two specific points in his interview. The first was that preexisting conditions would not be considered when someone applied for health insurance. The second was that there would no longer be a lifetime cap on the amount you could spend on one illness. Think Progress confirmed that preexisting conditions would no longer make someone ineligible for health insurance, no matter what that condition was. However, in a Huffington Post article concerning lifetime caps, it was not made clear that there would be a mandate limiting the amount that could be spent. These two arguments show the same proof as before, that the Democrats have no problem stretching the truth because without careful observation their arguments can be easily seen as fact.

Video Interview on the Democratic Party’s Plan to Fix Health Care

I’ve briefly interviewed Stew Jenkins, the San Luis Obispo Democratic Central Committee’s secretary, on what the Democrats think should be done to fix health care and some specifics of how they’ll do that.

Has the new health care bill failed? Part 2

As I stated in my previous blog post, the current health care reform is considered to be not enough by many Americans. People still think that it won’t fix the problems that face Americans and that it won’t give Americans what they truly deserve. The bill currently before the Senate has been seen as doing too much, as Republicans have complained over and over again. However, many people are starting to complain that this bill isn’t good enough to fix our problems, and that more reform and government takeover will be needed in order for there to be a health care system that Americans deserve.

A public option was put back in the bill, but that was not satisfactory enough for people, as they complained because it was only available to those without employer-provided insurance and so people could not turn to it if they didn’t like their current insurance. There is a growing demand for not just a wider public option, but for there to be just a public option, a.k.a. single payer insurance. The group Healthcare-NOW! has advocated the single payer option throughout the debate but their arguments have not been taken into consideration. They claim that the current bill has failed because it won’t solve anything and because it failed to make real change, things will only get worse. Their claim that the single payer option is the best way to reduce costs is because they see it as the simplest way and because of how it eliminates the need for private, for-profit insurance companies. Their idea of success would be to have the entire health insurance industry be controlled by the government with health care given to everyone. Therefore they see the health care bill as having failed because they don’t get what they believe is right.

Has the new health care bill failed? Part 1

While the new health care reform bill is before the Senate, it seems that it is only matter of time before it’s able to pass and the health care debate will finally come to an end. Or not. Because despite the Obama’s administration’s claims that this bill is the fix that Americans need, and ignoring the Republican claims that it will lead to the downfall of America, there are still people who say that the need for reform is still present. It is becoming clear that the debate is not yet over, and will likely continue for years to come. There are two main reasons that people want new measures: they either worried about the cost or they think that this bill hasn’t gone far enough. In this update I will address the issue of the cost.

One of the biggest reasons that the new bill was attacked was because people were afraid that it cost too much. Many people are worried that Americans will have to pay more under the new bill. However, this is not necessarily the case. As the Huffington Post pointed out, many money saving provisions have been put in the new bill, such as creating prevention programs that work to cut health care costs before people get sick and government oversight programs to improve efficiency. However, not many critics focus on that. Either they want to keep our current insurance system in order to have no costs or they’re worried that the new provisions won’t be effective in cutting costs.

Critics are complaining that the current bill may address the problem of lack of care but doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of rapidly rising health care costs. Another Huffington Post article criticizes the bill saying it is simply concessions to the insurance industry. The author makes the point that the public option should be extended to people with job provided health insurance to force competitiveness to drive down costs. He also claims that the deals made with drug companies will also make Americans pay more. An opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune has another idea on how to lower costs. That author states that we should improve patient knowledge of health problems so that people won’t agree to expensive and unnecessary procedures. She also points out that more patient knowledge can lead to healthier lifestyle decisions. Whether or not these writers are correct in their views, they show that health care reform has not done everything it could to reduce costs to the consumer. There’s more that should take place in order to make sure that Americans don’t have to suffer financially anymore.

All Style, No Substance

One of the most important things for the Republican Party is their effort to rebrand their image. They want to try to show people that they are now different from what the Party had been previously associated with. One of their attempts was to revamp their website. The new gop.com has had a facelift, looks very modern, and makes their blogs very prevalent. However, all this style comes with very little substance, health care reform and other topics of political importance are mentioned but they provide almost no details. Their stance on health care is that “We support common sense health care reforms that would lower costs, preserve quality, end lawsuit abuse, and maintain health care that Americans deserve. We oppose government run health care, which won’t protect the patient-physician relationship, won’t promote competition, and won’t protect quality health care and choice.  This statement is just a talking point, but it’s an effective one due to how it portrays the Democrats.

A screen cap of the Republican Party's new website's section on health care.

 

When the website states that they oppose government run health care, they just talk about negative things that could occur from the Democrat’s health care proposal. Of course, this is obviously because the last thing they want to do is make the Democrats look good. However, they just have a quick blurb on what has become a national issue. They’ve failed to inform people properly on their own website, and don’t even include links to other websites that have this information. Meanwhile the Democratic Party’s official website includes an overview that is four times as long and as detailed than the Republicans’ piece and is accompanied by several links to further addresses and speeches that the Democrats’ have made about health care. In previous posts I have discussed how many of the arguments that Republicans have made and included in their official stance on health care are actually false or have already been accounted for by the bill that the Democrats have drafted. There is obviously the problem that much of what people read on the GOP site is a lie. However, there is a further twisting of words by the Republicans in their stance on health care. They describe their goals for health care as “common sense.” The message that this sends is that the Republican position on health care is what everyone should want. It also assumes that if you don’t want to have the same position, then you’re obviously a fool that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Conflicting Public Opinion

Does a Majority Support President Obama’s Plans for Health Care Reform?

Here is a table showing some recent polls taken over the month, each showing whether or not their results showed if the nation supports Obama’s health plan.

POLLS	POSITION
A Rasmussen poll, taken between Oct. 30 and Oct. 31, asked, “Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?” It found that 42 percent favored the plan either strongly or somewhat, while 54 percent opposed it strongly or somewhat.	OPPOSE
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken between Oct. 22 and Oct. 25 asked, “From what you have heard about Barack Obama’s health care plan, do you think his plan is a good idea or a bad idea? If you do not have an opinion either way, please just say so.”	OPPOSE
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken between Oct. 16 and Oct. 18 asked, “What do you think would be better for the country — if Congress passed a bill to change the country’s health care system along the lines of what Barack Obama has proposed, or if the current system were left in place with no changes?”	SUPPORT
An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken Oct. 15 to Oct. 18 asked, “Overall, given what you know about them, would you say you support or oppose the proposed changes to the health care system being developed by Congress and the Obama administration?”	OPPOSE
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted between Oct. 8 and Oct. 15 asked, “Do you think the country as a whole would be better off or worse off if the president and Congress passed health care reform, or don’t you think it would make much difference?”	SUPPORT
A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll taken between Oct. 13 and Oct. 14 asked, “Based on what you know about the health care legislation being considered right now, do you favor or oppose the plan?”	OPPOSE
A Gallup poll taken between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4 asked, “Would you advise your member of Congress to vote for or against a health care bill this year?”	SUPPORT

This blog has mostly covered spectacular lies generated by the Republican minority in the government, schemes crafted to stop health care legislation whatever it takes. However, this doesn’t mean that the Obama administration hasn’t been fudging the truth as well. On Sunday November 1, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett. During the interview Stephanopoulos pointed out to Jarrett that the majority of the polls say that there is not a lot of support for Obama’s health care reform proposals, and Jarrett denied that claim and said, “we actually think that there is. And I suppose it depends upon what poll you’re looking at.” This is true; the problem is order to reach the same conclusion as Jarrett you’d have to ignore the majority of polls conducted on this topic. Jarrett stretched the truth a great deal in this interview by neglecting to mention that most polls actually support Stephanopoulos’ statement.

Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett

A sample of polls collected by Politifact show that for the most part, people don’t want to have Obama’s new health care. Out of seven polls that they mention, only three drew a favorable response. Furthermore, none of these three polls showed that support for Obama’s plan was an overwhelming majority; in fact they all had a percentage in the fifties. The four polls that showed opposition to reform mostly showed support in the thirties. This also is not a recent development caused by a heating up of the health care debate. The polls that Rasmussen has conducted since August show that a minority has always supported reform. However, a great deal of this has also to do with the wording chosen by the people conducting the polls. The three polls that drew favorable results did not mention Obama or Democrats but said “the president” and “Congress.” Meanwhile the polls that showed people did not support reform did just the opposite. This shows that people may not necessarily against health care but instead they may just be against Obama. Furthermore, the polls that showed opposition left out important demographics. They only polled likely voters, but Obama’s main sources of support have come from unlikely voters who have not historically made an impact in the elections. These voters are why barely most of the country supports Obama’s health care reform, and if the administration wants to convince the rest of voters, they’ll have to work to show them the truth behind these polls.

Forced to pay less

One of the most vocal and more legitimate concerns voiced by the Republican opposition to current health care reform is that it would damage the health care industry’s ability to compete because the public option would drain away customers simply by being cheaper. They believe that government-run health care is worse for America than having private options that compete with each other to lower costs. In their eyes, a government-run program would be more wasteful and inefficient that the private option. It’s this sentiment that adds context to a statement that House Republican Leader John Boehner made on Oct. 26. He said that ““Whether you call it a public option, an opt-out, a trigger, or a co-op, the fact is all of these proposals put us on the path to government-run health care. Forcing Americans off of their current health coverage and onto a government-run plan isn’t the answer, but that’s exactly what the Democrats’ plan would do.” His greatest concern is that the new health care bill being proposed will eliminate customers from private insurance companies and therefore require Americans to have inferior care to what they normally would have. His concern would be completely valid, if it was true that any Americans would be forced to acquire government-run health care.

As Politifact pointed out, there are no plans to force people to sign up for the public option, and there are even safe guards written in the bill that will prevent the public option from destroying the private sector. This attack by Boehner echoes a similar one that Karl Rove made months earlier in an editorial that referenced a study by the Lewin Group, whose main customers are private insurance companies. The study claimed that in three years 123 million people would be insured under the public option. This would occur under a system where there would be no limit on the amount of taxpayer money spent on health care, it would force insurance companies to accept payments as low as Medicare. In this system, companies would all sign their employees up for the public option and eventually bankrupt the health care insurance industry. However, none of these statements, which were crucial to the study’s results, are true either. Once again, prominent Republicans are issuing talking points and trying to sway public opinion to their side with evidence that they’ve made up in order to maintain the health care status quo. It would be unfair to claim that they are being bribed by the insurance industry, but these statements do raise the question of why they are willing to blatantly lie in order to protect it.

Republican Representative for the 8th District of Ohio John Boehner

“Will this improve my life?

Republicans have been constantly trotting out talking points that are simply blatant lies for the entire length of the health care debate. Most of them are ridiculous: the death panels, free health care for illegal immigrants, accusations of socialism, etc. However, they’ve come out with several news ones since last week, but this time they’ve made them effective because they sound believable. Republican Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns spoke Saturday in the GOP’s weekly video and radio address about several concerns that people should have for the health care reform bill. Among the things he included, MSNBC pointed out:

• “To the factory worker, who has forgone pay raises for the promise of better insurance benefits for you and your family: your health insurance will be taxed and your premiums will go up.”
• “To the recent college graduate burdened with student loans: you’ll be forced to buy health insurance the government mandates, and if you refuse, you’ll be hit with a penalty.”
• “To our seniors, who wish to receive care in the comfort of their homes: funding for hospice care and home health care services would be cut.”

Democrats have denied his claims, saying that coverage will be better for everyone and that health benefits to seniors will not be cut. The problem is that they did not offer any facts to counter the Republican talking points. The only thing they pointed out was that insurance payers have a “hidden tax” where they have to pay for the visits to hospitals by the uninsured. This means that under the new health care bill people will pay less than they did before because the that hidden cost will go away when everyone has health insurance.

There’s an additional problem though, Johanns framed these talking points with a question about the Democrats’ health care proposal: “Will this improve your life?” This is an underhanded way of attacking reform, because when it’s followed by those statements it makes it seem like the Democrats’ plan is to hurt Americans. Democrats and the Obama administration have not done enough to counter these attacks with factual evidence and they need to increase their efforts if they want their reform to be popular.

Republican Nebraska Senator Mike Johann