Comments on: Palin kicks the politics of fear and disinformation into high gear – Death Panels?

By: Daryl

Daryl — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:58:11 +0000

Jeff, your sentence should read, “Germany, the UK, Canada and every other country with universal care and without exception every insurance company” subjects high cost procedures and end of life care to utilization review. (Utilization review being a little more objective than rationing with all the baggage that term brings). You ask why shouldn’t you worry about this issue. The reason is that it already exists – in fact Medicare is a fairly good model for a one payer system with one exception, medicare has never had a budget and as a pay for service system has never had utilization review.
The fact is that everyone with a private insurance plan is already subject to utilization review, caps, exclusions for pre-existing conditions and any other way to not pay insurers can come up with (that is their business model you konw – take in more premiums than you pay out in claims).

You should worry less about it because currently you’re far more likely to have your insurance company just tell you you’ve reached your event or lifetime cap or claim you have a pre-existing condition and tie you up in administrative appeals in the hope you’ll die before it’s resolved.

Finally partisan politics is fine if you have more than 2 parties – which we don’t. I wrote on that issue early this morning. It leaves us with the politics of black and whilte, a system quite incapable of dealing with the various shades of grey that constitute the world in which we live. The issue you take with “end of life rationing” is an example, the term is loaded by use of the specific word rationing where utilization review is less laden and as accurate, such utilization review is something that in reality currently exists EVERYWHERE BUT our nationalized insurance (Medicare) and is unavoidable anyway. It is because public figures in either party throwing out phrases like “Obama death panels” do nothing to support a healthy national discussion on the issue with a mind to resolution even if it’s resolution by compromise, instead they grandstand, they try to trigger the fear centers of the brain in the hope that rational analysis will be avoided.

I do appreciate your coments, thanks Jeff.

By: Is the American two party system too bi-polar to meet America’s needs? | Bicker, Back & Forth, PS.

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:36:51 +0000

[...] I wrote on that issue yesterday to find that Ms. Palin’s statements were in the worlds of a fact checking organization “pants on fire” wrong. [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:11:39 +0000

But Germany, the UK, Canada, and just about every other country with universal care rations end of life care. Single payer is like a giant HMO run by the government. Centralized government rationing is inevitable. Why shouldn’t we worry about this issue?

BBS’s comments about Sowell show a breathtaking ignorance about what insurance actually is.

And Daryl, why is partisan politics a problem? We have two dueling conceptions of human rights, governance, and yes health care – a European socialist conception from the liberals, and constitutionalism from conservatives. We’re all advocating for our views. That’s god, right? (I’ll leave out responses to the tortured references to “torture.”)

Gunnar says, ” it appears they are just the party of ‘No.’” Alas, that’s true.

By: Daryl

Daryl — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:37:42 +0000

I personally believe that healthcare reform is too important to allow it to be victim to partisan politics. In that light I’d rather not point to the GOP as the party of fear, I think both parties are guilty of dissinformation and fear mongering.
Alas I don’t see that we have any formal mechanism for truth seeking in our system, partisan think tanks have replaced impartial academia as aribters of fact in the battle of fact vs fiction.
It’s really time for the media to stop worrying about ratings and start standing up when the emperor has no clothes. I think one of the primary reasons we still haven’t resolved whether or not 183 waterboardings is torture is that the media never had the guts to call torture for torture – “enhanced interrogation techniques that some say are torture” is a complete abducation of their responsibility to the truth.

By: Gunnar

Gunnar — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:58:58 +0000

I am really sick and tired of the fear tactics of the GOP – Health Reform plans to kill old people last week, this week it’s for killing old people and kids with disabilities.

The lies were one thing, now they are systematically organizing disruptions at political meetings where the intent is to silence debate on healthcare reform entirely.

Frankly I think it all makes them look weak – if they had a real position on anything it would beat these tactics – it appears they are just the party of “No.”