Thread: Obama outlines health care plan for all

Thank you for posting the images ... demonstrates the difference between "home-grown" protestors with their hand-made -if creative - signage and the "astroturf brigades" with the matching signs and t's all professionally printed and passed out.


In Defense of the Public Option

The defense of the public option coming from the administration, Paul Krugman, Mark Thoma and many others is that a public plan would have lower administrative costs and it would discipline the insurance industry. As stated, I find the argument weak. The argument, however, begins to make a certain kind of sense when you consider what else the major health insurance reform proposals would do.

The major proposals would require insurance companies to take all customers regardless of pre-existing conditions, offer guaranteed renewability and no dropping of coverage for the ill, impose no annual or lifetime caps, and offer coverage of preventative care with no-cost share, among other requirements. Finally, if insurance companies must take all customers regardless of pre-existing conditions it is obvious that sooner or later and probably sooner the government will require that everyone purchase health insurance. ( see http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-ins...r-protections/ )

In short, insurance reform will mean that everyone will be required to buy a product that will be tightly regulated and more homogeneous. Both of these factors will increase the market power of insurance firms. Since escape via non-purchase will no longer be a potential response to higher prices, mandatory purchase will reduce the elasticity of demand giving firms an incentive to increase prices. Moreover, in oligopolistic markets, a more homogeneous product can increase the ability of firms to collude.

I believe that health insurance reform will increase the market power of insurance firms and drive up prices. In this scenario, the public option at least has a raison d'etre, although whether it actually fulfills its purpose is an open question.

It's true that mandatory purchase doesn't necessarily lead to market power, auto insurance is quite competitive. Nevertheless, given the potential of insurance reform to increase the market power of insurance firms the search for some disciplining device like the public option is reasonable. Other useful reforms would be to have a single, national regulator of insurance - rather than the 50 we have now, allow an optional federal charter (as we do for banks) or (my preferred approach) move to a competitive federalist system for insurance similar to that for corporate charters.

Hat tip to Ray Lehmann for discussion.


Posted by Alex Tabarrok on August 25, 2009 at 07:10 AM
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma...ic-option.html

Comments

what is the backstop if private health insurance companies go bankrupt? will we need a treasury backstop? a bailout like the financial bailout? if so, we need to regulate these firms heavily, just as we need to regulate the banking sector.

Obama outlines health care plan for ALL

The more the Democrats deny it, the more obvious it becomes that Obamacare will of course cover illegal aliens.

I said so last month. http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/26...llegal-aliens/

And now…


GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, citing a new, non-partisan Congressional Research Service report, says it again: http://lamarsmith.house.gov/Read.aspx?ID=1232

“Democrats can keep claiming all they want that illegal immigrants will not be covered in this bill. But their actions speak louder than their words. Democrats have rejected opportunities to close the gaping loopholes in this health care bill that will allow illegal immigrants to participate.

“If President Obama is committed to ensuring that illegal immigrants do not benefit from the bill – as he says he is – why not include the same verification mechanisms in this bill as already exist for other federal benefits programs?

“What’s more, the bill contains no provisions preventing illegal immigrants from participating in the Health Insurance Exchange that is to be created, including the government-run “public plan” that will be available through the federally-run and federally-subsidized Exchange. This is in direct conflict with the President’s claim that illegal immigrants will not be insured under his plan.

“The American people are more intelligent than the President gives them credit for. They understand that simply saying illegal immigrants can’t participate without providing verification is like putting a speed-limit sign on a road, then setting a policy that prohibits police from patrolling the road; it won’t stop speeders, and this bill won’t stop illegal immigrants from benefitting.”

BACKGROUND: IMMIGRATION LOOPHOLES IN HR 3200

Open access to Insurance Exchange: HR 3200 contains no provisions preventing illegal immigrants from participating in the Health Insurance Exchange that is to be created, including the government-run “public plan” that will be available through the federally-run and federally-subsidized Exchange.

According to CRS: “Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.”

No verification mechanism: Democrats point to language in the House bill that says illegal immigrants cannot get benefits. While that may be technically accurate, it is far from the truth.

The fact is that the statement is meaningless because the bill contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive benefits. Democrats defeated amendments in two congressional committees to close this loophole, including amendments that would use the very same verification mechanism that already exist in statute for other federal programs. Why not include the same verification mechanisms in this bill as already exist for other federal benefits programs? Without the requirement that there be a verification mechanism or a specific verification mechanism provided in statute, the Commissioner could determine that the eligibility requirements could be met either without verification or with as little as a signed attestation.

According to CRS: “Some have expressed concerns that since H.R. 3200 does not contain a mechanism to verify immigration status, the prohibitions on certain noncitizens (e.g, nonimmigrants and unauthorized aliens) receiving the credits may not be enforced. However, others note that under §142(a)(3) of the bill, it is the responsibility of the Health Choices Commissioner (Commissioner) to administer the “individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title II, including determination of eligibility for such credits.”

Family eligibility for affordability credits: Section 242(a)(2) of the bill provides that “[e]xcept as the Commissioner may otherwise provide, members of the same family who are affordable credit eligible individuals shall be treated as a single affordable credit individual eligible for the applicable credit for such a family under this subtitle.” This suggests that if one member of a family is legally eligible, every family member will be considered eligible. This is significant in terms of numbers — the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there are almost two million families in the United States where illegal immigrant parents have U.S.-born children. That does not include other “mixed status families” - one legal parent, one illegal parent and illegal child, etc.

According to CRS: “There could be instances where some family members would meet the definition of an eligible individual for purposes of the credit, while other family members would not. For example, in a family consisting of a U.S. citizen married to an unauthorized alien and a U.S. citizen child, the U.S. citizen spouse and child could meet the criteria for being a credit-eligible individual, while the unauthorized alien spouse would not meet the criteria. H.R. 3200 does not expressly address how such a situation would be treated. Therefore, it appears that the Health Choices Commissioner would be responsible for determining how the credits would be administered in the case of mixed-status families.”

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/26...ens-revisited/


“Health Choices Commissioner”

What a perfectly Orwellian title.




Simple rule of thumb applies here …

Anything that is not specifically disallowed in whatever comes out of Washington, D.C. is implicitly allowed … we cannot ever stop the new wave of activism by the no longer silent majority … we must remain to be even more vigilant with every day … the socialist leaning left will never stop trying to end the country many of us have fought and bled and sacrificed for and that many others have died for …


Politicians do not function in the Real World. They have no concept of cause and effect.

The state of California is a perfect example. To save money, they are going to release 27,000 prisoners at a time when unemployment is approaching 15%. Health and social services are being cut back. Many of these prisoners will have no choice but revert to crime. Most of them will end up in parts of the state that are heavily Democratic. No money will be saved, many of them will go back to prison.

Nancy Pelosi, prepare for a crime wave among your costituents.

Every Voice Matters in the Consensus Based House Meetings » [i]
Obama's Uncles

They seem kind of hostile to the president. First there was Uncle Charlie, who Obama claimed had liberated Auschwitz (he'd helped liberate Buchenwald). And when Charlie was asked, months later, about Obama's visit to Buchenwald, he took a rather cynical view of the president's motives:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Payne, early in June your great-nephew, President Barack Obama, will visit the former concentration camp Buchenwald, which you helped liberate at the end of the war. Will he be travelling in your footsteps?

Charles Payne: I don't buy that. I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons.

Obama's own uncle thinks he is a craven and calculating politician. Now Ben Smith posts the transcript of a Dana Bash interview with another Obama uncle, this one his great uncle Ralph Dunham, who was mingling freely with the right-wing mob at a town hall meeting in Northern Virginia this week:

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you feel like you have a good grasp of what's in the plans for overhauling health care?

RALPH DUNHAM, PRESIDENT OBAMA'S GREAT-UNCLE: No, I don't, because the thing is over a 1,000 pages long, and the House and the Senate are going straighten out the two bills. And nobody knows what's going to be in it, I don't think.

BASH: Do you feel confused by it?

DUNHAM: I don't really know very much about it. I don't know whether to be confused or not. I'm hoping we get some information just like everyone else.

BROWN: Now, Dunham tells Dana his great nephew, the president, needs to do a better job of reassuring the public about all this.

The fact that Obama's own great uncle is unwilling to give the president the benefit of the doubt on his health care reform, and that he feels that the White House has done a lousy job of explaining what's in the bill (mostly because they spent the last month accusing anyone who questioned health care reform of being a Nazi), may help explain why support for health care reform has completely collapsed over the last month. Just 25 percent of the country supports the president's plans, and if you polled the president's own family, it's not obvious he'd do any better.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog...mas_uncles.asp


Illegal health reform
The authors of this article explain why the individual mandate is unconstitutional. (I didn't think the government could make me purchase health insurance.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...103033_pf.html

Query: What about all those czars?
From where do they derive their authority?

Just askin.

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/...e-unauthorized



From K-Lo: Wow. File This Under 'Imagine If a Republican Did This'
and Get the Drudge Siren on the Line

The National Endowment for the Arts is overtly recruiting propagandists from the arts community to promote the Obama agenda:

Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us.

They're a brazen bunch. Read the whole thing at Big Hollywood. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pc...e/#more-209182

Pundit's comment: Creepy.

http://www.punditandpundette.com/200...dom-notes.html


Two from the Foundry:
The Slippery Slope of Health-Care Reform http://blog.heritage.org/2009/08/27/...h-care-reform/

Townhall Downfall: Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) Refuses To Go On Public Plan If Obamacare Passes http://blog.heritage.org/2009/08/27/...h-care-reform/

During the mark up of H.R. 3200, House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) voted against an amendment that would have required Members of Congress to forfeit their current private coverage and force them to enroll in the newly-created public health insurance plan. This would only be fair since independent analysis from the Lewin Group shows that if Obamacare passes, employers around the nation would sever the current private coverage of about 88.1 million Americans, and send them onto the public plan.

Kind’s constituent’s are not happy about this prospect, and one of them asked Kind if he would promise to go on the public plan:

(Watch the video: "I'm not saying it's so good!" Heh.)



Found this bit showing 10 clinical reasons why Politicians are Early Adolescents who never grew up.

http://www.conservativeblog.thewebin...ly-adolescence

Citizen With Camera Captures What MSM Cannot
September 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment
[via Instapundit]

Today we are presented with an interesting example of citizens and bloggers keeping the MSM honest. below is how the mainstream media covered a town hall meeting held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

But here is what you didn’t see :



http://www.foundingbloggers.com/word...at-msm-cannot/


CAUGHT ON TAPE: Obama HCAN Organizer Instructs Supporters How to Shout Down Opponents & Take Over Meetings

More Hope and Change--

A Health Care for America Now (HCAN) organizer is caught on tape outside the meeting instructing supporters on how to shout down opponents who get up to ask a question and how to block them from speaking at Rep. Jan Schakowski's town hall meeting.

Notice the HCAN stickers he is handing out at the end of the video:

This was recorded on August 31, 2009 outside the Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) town hall meeting in Skokie, Illinois.

In case you forgot... Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is the one who boasted to a group of radical supporters that a government provided insurance plan would put private insurers out of business.

She admitted it would destroy the private insurance industry.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...organizer.html

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/

They will do anything to sell their bill of obama kill grandma care...

Here's Hoping Obama's Speech Has More Perspective Than Gibbs

From the press briefing today:

Gibbs says August was not a HC setback. "Not at all."

Cue the #BaghdadBobGibbs tag on Twitter.

In other delusional news, the DNC is sending around Marc Ambinder's "Why Obama Won August, Really" (a title which he seems to have since thought better of and changed to "How Obama Survived August," according to the post's url) http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009...ust_really.php

Posted by Mary Katharine Ham on September 8, 2009 04:00 PM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog...speech_has.asp



See also : http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog...ocrats_who.asp

Originally Posted by oreo390

They will do anything to sell their bill of obama kill grandma care...

Death Republican Style ( It's the GOP out to get Granny)
Jacob Weisberg
Newsweek 9/7/09

The republicans charge that Democratic health care reform would, in Sen. Charles Grassley's words, "pull the plug on Grandma." According to Sen. Jon Kyl, the bills before Congress would ration medical treatment by age. Rep. John Boehner says they promote euthanasia. Sarah Palin has raised the specter of "death panels." Such fears are understandable. It's not preposterous to imagine laws that would try to save money by encouraging the inconvenient elderly to make an early exit. After all, that's been the Republican policy for years.

It was Grassley himself who devised the "Throw Mama From the Train" provision of the GOP's 2001 tax cut. The estate-tax revision he championed will reduce the estate tax to zero next year. But when it expires at year's end, the tax will jump back up to its previous level of 55 percent. Grassley's exploding tax break has an entirely foreseeable, if unintended, consequence: it incentivizes ailing, elderly rich people to end their lives—paging Dr. Kevorkian—before midnight on Dec. 31, 2010. It also gives their children an incentive to sign DNR orders and switch off respirators in time for the deadline. This would be a great plot for a P. D. James novel if it weren't an actual piece of legislation.

This is not merely hypothetical. Serious economists take the possibility seriously. In a 2001 paper entitled "Dying to Save Taxes," economists from the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia examined 13 changes in U.S. tax law since 1917 and concluded that benefactors die in greater numbers just before tax hikes and just after tax cuts. A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in July 1979, reached the same conclusion. Statistics showed that more than half the people who would ordinarily have died in the last week of June 1979—and whose heirs would have been subject to the tax—managed to avoid it by surviving into July. Republicans in Congress have created a similar inducement for Grandma not to die before January 2010, but to make sure she is gone by January 2011.

Other GOP policies promote death for senior citizens with more modest incomes. Take George W. Bush's failed plan to privatize Social Security—a program that has driven life expectancy up and death rates down since it was instituted. It has an especially pronounced impact on suicide rates for the elderly, which have declined 56 percent since 1930. Had Bush prevailed, those who gambled on the stock market and lost would be less able to afford medicine, food, and heating for their homes. In aggregate, they'd likely die younger and commit suicide more often.

Republicans continue working to short-en and sadden the lives of the elderly in more oblique ways, too. One of President Obama's first official acts was to reverse Bush's executive order limiting government funding for stem-cell research, which remains the most promising avenue for new treatments of diseases that afflict the aged, including Parkinson's and Alz-hei-mer's. Clean-air legislation, which the Republicans defeated in 2002, has the potential to save 23,000 lives per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many of those victims are elderly people, who suffer disproportionately from cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses exacerbated by air pollution. Because emissions of carbon monoxide and such are merely a contributing factor, you can't name the individuals who have died because of this policy choice. But it's reasonable to deduce that there are tens of thousands of people who would still be elderly today if Republicans didn't value the rights and campaign contributions of polluters more highly than their lives.

But why would Republicans be trying to kill old people? After all, senior citizens are more likely to vote for the GOP than for Democrats. They were the only substantial demographic segment John McCain won in 2008. You'd think conservatives would want them to hang on as long as possible. The problem is that because of the Democratic programs Social Security and Medicare, the aged are expensive for government to keep around. The writer Jodie T. Allen once explained the reason for the GOP's "pro-death" policies: faced with an unpalatable choice between cutting benefits and raising taxes to pay for the growing costs of entitlement programs, Republicans gravitated toward a third alternative—restraining growth in life expectancy. If you want lower taxes and aren't willing to risk cutting spending, you need fewer beneficiaries.

I do not wish to alarm older, wealthier readers, but you may find family gatherings becoming increasingly tense over the next year. Do not be surprised if your heirs try to sit you down for a "conversation." And do not be surprised if you experience something like the following nightmare: You're in a hospital bed, hovering in a state of partial consciousness. Beneath the mask, that surgeon has a familiar face … wait, isn't that … Dr. Grassley? And who's that with the syringe—Nurse Palin? At which point, if you are lucky, you will wake up in a cold sweat.

Fact Checking the White House Video
Why Millions of Americans Will Lose Their Private Coverage
Posted September 8th, 2009

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/08/...vate-coverage/

The White House’s assertion that you’ll be able to keep your health insurance if you like it is wrong given the incentives built into the House and Senate bills (i.e., employer mandates and creation of a government-run health plan). Companies will find it easier to pay a tax or fine and dump their employees out of their existing private coverage and onto a public plan or other alternatives. And it won’t just be the health insurance options that are limited.

Under current legislation, the government would have the authority to determine the benefit packages that Americans get, from medical treatments and procedures to drugs and devices. These decisions would be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and an advisory committee on benefits. At the end of the day, Americans will get what the government decides they can receive in terms of health benefits.