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Posted: 10/13/2009 6:15:12 PM | Thanks Minister. Folks lets please keep this civilized.
fzrhusker I agree with your last post. Before we go anywhere beyond repealing the 1945 legislation we need to fire all those that were looking the other way during the last three economic bubbles. Maybe then with some competent ( or at least those that actually fear for their cush Congress job) people in office we can get some stuff done. 1000 pages sounds like a middlemen scheme to me. Cap and trade sounds like the same. It is difficult to read and understand and I think that's the plan. And now for the broken record; It would be a lot easier to just hand out prize money for solar that costs $.25 a watt and bio fuel that costs $2 a gallon. No results=no prize money. But that would be easy for the public to follow. No I'm not trying to thread jack my own thread but just making a point. Who has time to read a 1000 pages besides the people in the news who will give us anything but the whole story?
And if I follow this right then Obama is going to pull the waste out of Medicare to use it to help finance this new bill. Pffffft! Bwahahahaha!!! As if....And he should be doing that anyway.
As for now the only socialization that makes sense to me is for catastrophic injuries. But aren't we already there.....?
So for now we should just repeal the old anti-trust legislation, observe it's effects for a couple years and then move on
to the next adjustment to the system. | |
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Posted: 10/13/2009 6:28:00 PM | To elaborate on voting some or most of Congress out of office I think this would help big time. I've heard all the arguments about "wasting your vote" ect ect... If both parties lose 20 percent of their seats or more to a third party then it will shake up the system and turn heads from lobbyists to the voters IMHO.
That is not a wasted vote.
And then the other argument; "But what are they going to get done with all those third-party loons clogging up the system?"
What are they going to get done?! As opposed to what?!!
When you put your third party rep into power you send him a letter that instructs him specifically what to do. Who cares what his platform is. If he does not follow your instructions the vote him out. A couple candidates later the message will be Lima Charlie. It may take some years to get the message through but it would be worth it. I see it as an investment. | |
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Posted: 10/14/2009 1:24:28 PM | | http://www.parentdish.com/2009/09/15/british-doctors-leave-preemie-to-die/ | |
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Posted: 10/14/2009 10:27:30 PM | Just is bad as having a partial-birth abortion. It's one thing to abort a 1000-cell mass but this is just ruthless. I'm a bit pissed.
I think this is more a sad comment on the Brits and their values. But I think it is irrelevant concerning what we can do on a practical level to improve our own system. | |
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Posted: 10/14/2009 10:42:22 PM |
To elaborate on voting some or most of Congress out of office I think this would help big time.
Give it until next year. The observers I've read think that if trends continue unchanged, Obama's party will lose maybe 50 seats in the House. Just look at the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey right now. | |
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Posted: 10/14/2009 10:58:36 PM | You really think this is about health care?
What I know about ACORN, the SEIU and Obama
Posted: September 23, 2009
12:33 pm Eastern
© 2009
In the spring of 2004 we learned Advocate Health Care wanted to build a hospital in a southwest suburb of Chicago, my home turf.
We organized a protest of Advocate at a public hearing to consider its plan. It was there we first encountered the Service Employees International Union, also protesting Advocate.
Advocate, as "metropolitan Chicago's leading private provider of health care and its third largest private employer," according to an SEIU flyer, had 25,000 nonunionized workers.
St. Francis wasn't unionized either, but it was only one hospital. SEIU was focusing on the big fish.
Working with SEIU against Advocate was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, only I didn't realize it then.
SEIU and ACORN were working together to make Advocate's life miserable for not unionizing. SEIU had formed the Hospital Accountability Project, accusing Advocate of gouging the poor with "discriminatory pricing of health care and predatory collections policies that disproportionately impact the uninsured," according to an SEIU flyer.
SEIU was also demanding Advocate provide more charity care and, of course, unionize.
I knew a group of poor people had protested at both Christ Hospital and the home of its CEO but didn't know it was ACORN, not that I would have understood the implication of that at the time.
I'm no friend of Advocate, but basically SEIU and ACORN were accusing Advocate of good business practices.
According to Crain's Chicago Business, Feb. 20, 2004:
SEIU and other unions … have launched campaigns around the country aiming to organize hospital employees.
The campaigns often use unconventional methods, such as issuing reports that call attention to a hospital's shortcomings. …
Because I was no friend of Advocate, hadn't been following ACORN–SEIU's menacing shakedown tactics, and didn't (and still don't) understand the depth and breadth of their political influence, I was pleased we shared the same goal to keep Advocate from expanding.
So I introduced myself to SEIU organizer Joseph Geevarghese, saying I was glad we were on the same side.
Joseph said perhaps we could join forces. He was also working with a church organizer, he said.
Joseph organized a meeting between the three of us at SEIU. I've always remembered the Obama sign in a window at the SEIU office, an added reminder of how common goals can create strange bedfellows. This was during Obama's U.S. Senate campaign. As state senator, Obama had spearheaded opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which protects babies aborted alive.
Pro-lifers decided we would launch a postcard campaign among area churches to "Say NO to Advocate. Say YES to St. Francis." Joseph wasn't thrilled with the "YES to St. Francis" part but offered to fund our project.
Long story short, our hard work paid off and we kept Advocate out, so we thought, although we weren't happy the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board also voted St. Francis down.
A couple years later it was learned – surprise – the IHFPB was corrupt. In October 2006 IHFPB board member Stuart Levine and Obama pal Tony Rezko were indicted in part for conspiring to manipulate IHFPB decisions in exchange for bribes.
I have grown to think basically every governmental decision in Illinois is made for nefarious reasons.
Which brings me to last week. As the media started spending more time on ACORN, I realized it was connected to SEIU. I recognized some of its tactics.
I wondered if I had held on to that Advocate–SEIU file, now five years old. Reviewing it might be enlightening, I thought.
I did, and it was. I had kept pretty much everything – SEIU's Hospital Accountability Project newsletters, my invoices, and letters.
The Winter 2003 SEIU Hospital Accountability Project newsletter featured the front page story, "State Senate launches inquiry of Advocate Health Care's predatory collection practices":
Unsatisfied with Advocate Health Care's response to charges of predatory collections, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, led by Sen. Barack Obama, vowed Oct. 22 to seek answers from the hospital chain. …
Among the many community, religious and government officials who testified were Lt. Gov. [now governor] Pat Quinn. …
Another article, "Attorney general launches probe of hospital price gouging," reported:
Responding to recent reports about price gouging and predatory collections by Advocate Health Care and other hospitals, Attorney General Lisa Madigan opened an inquiry into hospital billing practices Oct. 23. …
The investigation comes on the heels of an inquiry launched Oct. 22 by the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee, led by Sen. Barack Obama.
Over the years, SEIU local and national groups have contributed $223,460 to Lisa Madigan's campaigns.
SEIU entities have contributed $112,450 to Lisa's father, Michael, speaker of the Illinois House and chairman of the Illinois Democrat Party, to which SEIU has contributed $521,800.
SEIU has given Quinn $67,000.
And SEIU's go-to guy Obama? Only $2,750, which to me is more telling than a large amount would be. They were being careful. That said, SEIU has given the Illinois Senate Democratic Fund $246,500.
All of that was to say it should come as no surprise that Illinois is not one of the 20 states now investigating ACORN.
Back to my file. The most interesting finds were letters.
One, dated March 29, 2004, was from state Sen. Barack Obama to the chairman of IHFPB, Tom Beck.
We now know Beck was on the dole for indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. In 2008 Beck testified under immunity that he gave $1,000 to Rezko in 2003 to ensure the newby governor reappointed him. There's more on Beck, but I'm already going to be way over my word limit.
The point of Obama's letter was to steer IHFPB away from Advocate. Obama wrote:
The Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee [which Obama didn't mention he chaired] opened an inquiry into aggressive hospital pricing and collection policies, paying particular attention to the business practices of Advocate Health Care. …
I urge … IHFPB to examine hospital pricing and debt collection policies, as well as the provision of charity care, as you determine whether or not to award permits for new hospital construction in our state.
In February 2004, Obama took a step further. According to the Spring 2004 Hospital Accountability Project newsletter:
After conducting hearings in the fall, Sen. Obama introduced SB2579, which requires hospitals to provide free and reduced-price health care for low-income uninsured patients, to curb predatory debt collections practices, and to publicize the availability of charity care.
That effort failed, but he tried.
Another letter I found was from Trinity United Church of Christ's senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, to all UCCs in Chicagoland, dated March 3, 2004. One of Advocate's two religious affiliates is the United Church of Christ.
In his letter Wright encouraged churches to pass a resolution calling on Advocate to:
… proclaim a Hospital Jubilee in which they agree to: … end discriminatory pricing, … end predatory debt collections, … forgive unjust medical debt … implement automatic charity care, … [and] respect their worker's right to a free and fair union election process.
Wright enclosed a four-page Hospital Jubilee brochure drawing out those points – authored by SEIU's Hospital Accountability Project.
SEIU and ACORN have done so much more to terrorize Advocate for resisting unionization. They have endangered the health and safety of Advocate patients. Here's just one example, one of the more egregious. The Daily Southtown reported on Dec. 22, 2005:
The union denies that ferrying people in groups to emergency rooms is part of the Care For All strategy. But the SEIU-affiliated ACORN has been transporting small groups of people beyond their own communities to Advocate hospitals.
In so many words ACORN and SEIU have admitted to what I consider extortion. Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN, wrote this on his blog on Dec. 9, 2005, about a board meeting:
Joseph Geevarghese of SEIU's Hospital Accountability Project that has been focusing on the Advocate chain in the city gave a detailed report on the four years of this effort and the results in moving increased accountability, charity care, and other reforms at the hospital. 70,000 hospital workers are in the market and such an effort once again reminds organizers of SEIU's discipline in hunkering down to develop winning programs.
About SEIU's part in fighting Advocate's expansion, the Daily Southtown reported Feb. 8, 2004:
… [T]he expected public information campaign [is] likely to recognize that the union has been trying since last year to organize workers at all of Advocate's Chicago-area hospitals, Joseph Geevarghese, director of SEIU's Hospital Accountability Project, said.
"Part of the issues we plan to raise is that Advocate is not recognizing its employees' right to organize," Geevarghese said. …
The union plans to launch a website and will purchase advertisements in the coming weeks in local newspapers.
Edward Domansky, a spokesman for … Advocate … [said], "I'm not aware of it, but you need to see through all of this and realize that SEIU's intent is all about trying to organize 25,000 Advocate employees. …"
Aside from the scandal of the Advocate shakedown involving ACORN, SEIU, Obama and other Illinois elected officials, I think there is an aspect to this story that relates to the current health-care battle.
SEIU national President Andy Stern issued what I would otherwise have thought was a strange, almost irrational statement on Sept. 18:
As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash gets fierce, ugly and anti-American. This time is no different. …
These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.
Let's be clear who we are talking about – call them attack dogs, call them Teabaggers, call them Glenn Beck – these are the same folks who make up lies about death panels to try to kill health-care reform. Who scream about democracy while denying workers a voice on the job. …
Their lies, their stunts and their smears will not silence us. …
We are going to make sure health care is affordable and accessible for every man, woman and child in this country. … We are going to make sure workers get a voice on the job.
I'm quite sure part of Obama and the SEIU's long-term plan is to unionize every American health-care entity.
And thuggery toward that end doesn't bother them. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 9:38:13 AM | | But Matt, the democrats tout Britian and Canada as the example we should follow. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 1:13:59 PM |
These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.
That was a standard technique of Soviet propaganda--charge your opponents with doing the very thing you're doing yourself. It smears them as intolerant, while painting yourself as the victim, when just the opposite is true.
This jerk is just one more of the antidemocratic would-be totalitarians who are showing their ugly faces lately--many of them inside this administration. The Progressive movement in the U.S. has always had an intolerant, fascistic undertone, and it's showing up now as hostility to free speech.
One good counter is to point out how they're trying to prevent free discussion, and how un-American that is. I've seen people (probably fresh from being indoctrinated by some America-hating professor) say similar things here. They're in the wrong country. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 7:38:29 PM | Tomboy it would be interesting to ask the Dems if they adhere to all that the Brit system represents.
Matchlight I see the Reps do that a lot too. It's the pot calling the kettle black all day.
To day I heard something on AM 600. I think it was Brian Soups or is it Soots? Whatever. Well he says that adding more people to the system forces us into greater health care expenses. Reasonable enough. Then he tries to tie that to repealing the anti-trust exemption. What am I missing here? How could repealing the exemption and allowing interstate competition lead to higher costs? I wonder who pays this guys bills? | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 8:31:09 PM | Well, let's just say that my hide's starting to chafe a bit over this push for health care reform. The obvious first thing to do is to revoke the antitrust exemption and to break up the state-by-state barriers to rate competition.
If health care insurance needs regulation to prevent fraud and abuses, fine. Regulate it in a coherent and consisten way. But this so-called system we have is beyond a kludge, it's a cluster fuck.
If state and local governments, or even the federal government, want to sponsor buyer's pools and group coverage, fine. But we have been restraining trade in that sector of the economy for 60+ years and no wonder it's ****ed up.
There's nothing progressive about handing over the economy to the government, and no guarantee that the government will do any better than the open market. But even the government can easily do better than the CF system we have now.
What else have we given the insurance industry that we aren't aware of?
I'm mad at the Democrats for not identifying the root cause back in '91 and pushing to get it fixed. I'm mad at the Republicans for not proposing this market solution as a credible alternative. This whole debate has been about which type of feathers to use for stuffing the bed!
Unbelievable. Regardless of what happens with the current reform bill, that exemption and the other barriers to trade have to go. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 8:57:22 PM |
Matchlight I see the Reps do that a lot too. It's the pot calling the kettle black all day.
The efforts I've seen to shut people up have come from what most people think of as the left. If some Republicans have been trying to silence people on talk radio, etc., I haven't heard them. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 8:59:34 PM | Someone has hacked Ace, he's talking like one of us right wing nuts | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 9:14:13 PM | The Republicans have put many good ideas into HR3400 but the Dems are ignoring it and anything else the Republicans have to say.
I think their ultimate goal is to make health care a complete mess and so expensive that people will have to go into the public option. | |
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Posted: 10/15/2009 9:17:38 PM |
The obvious first thing to do is to revoke the antitrust exemption
I'm not so sure about that. I haven't followed this all that closely, but I heard Mark Levin discuss the history of that exemption in detail a couple days ago. I can't do it justice here--he started in 1868, with Paul v. Virginia (holding that insurance was not "commerce," within meaning of Commerce Clause) and traced the history of insurance and the Commerce Clause through another major Supreme Court decision during WWII to the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.
The gist of it was that the 1940's decision effectively overruled Paul. In reaction to this decision, Congress passed McCarran-Ferguson, which recognizes Congress' power to regulate out-of-state insurance as interstate commerce--but as a matter of policy, authorizes the states to regulate it. The Act included a very narrow antitrust exemption to allow insurance companies to do what they'd been doing since the 1860's--pooling risk to reduce costs. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 7:49:30 AM | Match, reduce risk for whom? The State? And did courts in those days anticipate a state taking responsibility for extraordinarily chronic illness llike AIDS, etc.? This decision inadvertently I'm sure had created a situation where an average family is unable to insure themselves as they via this "hidden tax" drive insurance costs up for all except the truly, truly sick or destitute.
While on the one had one appreciates Federalism, the unintended (my speculation) consequences of prohibiting competition intra- and interstate would seem to outweigh this "wobbler". | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 10:34:29 AM | Someone has hacked Ace, he's talking like one of us right wing nuts
That's the nice part about being a liberal. I don't have to stand up for any particular ideologically correct solution. I can think things through for myself.
However, you did notice my call for _appropriate_regulation_ there now didn't you? I am not giving that up.
If the salient difference between a liberal and a conservative is whose interests are protected, then a liberal favors protecting whichever individual or group is in the weaker bargaining position--not so that they are guaranteed to prevail, but so that their legitimate interests are safeguarded and they don't get screwed in any unfair deals. All sides need to remain accountable to each other for their performance: buyers, sellers, and third-party stakeholders.
There are two ways to go about that: 1) eliminate structural barriers that give one group an unearned advantage over the other, and; 2) add regulations that help one group match the power of the other. In this case, we're going for #2 when there are opportunities to accomplish the goal via #1. Reducing barriers is always less expensive than adding regulations--I'll grant you contards that. But that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to work.
When it doesn't, I reserve the right to call for -- OMG!!! -- quasi-market (e.g. regulated monopolies), or even government-owned solutions (with elected oversight boards). As I have said many times (apparently to deaf ears prior to this), when the markets can work, I favor them.
One other clarification: The current debate isn't about which feathers to use, it's about which bed to stuff. It's all bullfeathers. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 10:48:21 AM | My god Ace how dare you try to put some common sense in to this discussion. Don't you know that all things politics are a sport and the American people are the ball being kicked around.
How dare you try to present some type of solution, you are to only point out the problems.
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Posted: 10/16/2009 10:58:55 AM | Being a liberal means two free people cannot perform a mutually benefical transaction without government involvement. All this eyewash about regulation is simply Stalin killing off Kulacks to create collectivized farms writ small. Your model is so broken it's tragic. The freer the society, the richer the society is a universal truth you choose to ignore.
The more you regulate, the greater the possibility of misregulation which is what we're knee deep in at the moment.
A simple test, were there more regs in 1959 or 2009? Are there more disasters now or then, in banking? real estate, failed states? Insurance companies? were there more kids shooting the neighbor kids in driveby's then or now in spite of the fact we've assigned three liberals to manage every deadbeat liberal family to prevent the above.
Actually you can take any regulated-government intrusive activity and reach the same result. Government is simply a sop for deadbeats and people who benefit from deadbeats, and now you know the rest of the story. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 11:37:27 AM |
Being a liberal means two free people cannot perform a mutually benefical transaction without government involvement.
Hey! Liberals need hookers too. You Repubs can't have all the fun. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 12:00:24 PM | | We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 1:08:27 PM |
reduce risk for whom
I'm no expert on this, but I'd guess insurers first started pooling risk in the 1800's because each of them was concerned about going broke if it had to pay off on an enormous claim. The development of antitrust laws tended to make this harder to do, especially when the Court held during WWII that insurance was a matter of commerce subject to Congress' regulation.
I'm usually all in favor of competition, and I think the barriers to it generally should be taken down. But insurance may be a special case where pooling risk lowers costs for everyone involved, including the consumer. I don't know that's the case for health insurance companies--mostly I was just reporting what I'd heard. Levin knows the law very well, and it made sense when I heard it. He may have something on his website. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 1:10:48 PM |
I'm mad at the Democrats for not identifying the root cause back in '91 and pushing to get it fixed. I'm mad at the Republicans for not proposing this market solution as a credible alternative. This whole debate has been about which type of feathers to use for stuffing the bed!
Ace, nicely stated. The Republicans do have a plan. It is HR 3400
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3400:
http://healthcare.cato.org/files/empowering-patients-first-act-summary.pdf
I do not agree with all of it, but it offers free market reform without turning it over to the govt. It all covers pre-existing conditions and will be available to everyone.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/pwc_report_on_Costs_final_101109.pdf?sid=ST2009101102325 | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 1:16:40 PM | | I suspect our president takes that with a large grain of salt. Yeah, Jefferson. And Sally Hemings. And his slaves. Gimme a break. | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 3:20:21 PM |
Being a liberal means two free people cannot perform a mutually benefical transaction without government involvement.
As long as their transaction doesn't impinge on the rights or property values of third parties, I don't see why not. But those stakeholders continue to have a legitimate interest in the transaction whether it is reflected in the price negotiations between the two parties or not, if only because it is by their cooperation that the infrastructure for such transactions is maintained in the first place.
The recognition of externalities is where neoclassical economics falls short of adequately modeling the true value of a transaction.
My model is your model, and unlike you, I actually can point to the place where it is broken, explain why, and offer alternatives to repairing it that fit the circumstances of particular cases.
For you, it's just black-and-white blathering, because when it comes right down to it, your ideology takes precedence over everything. You love your model more than you love the truth. What, did you memorize Atlas Shrugged or something? For the record, I do know who John Galt is. I guess that to you anyone is a deadbeat who isn't already rich.
I will go this far with you, though. More regulation does not necessarily mean the _right_ regulation. Nor does _less_ regulation, as recent events in the aftermath of deregulating real estate lending have clearly shown. The fact that our lobbyist-ridden government (and I'd love for you to show me where the liberals are getting the money to pay them all) didn't get the regulations right doesn't mean that appropriate regulation isn't necessary or helpful in maintaining a free economy. It just means that the regulatory scheme got monkey-wrenched--like what happened in health care before I was even born. Flippin' idjits!!! | |
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Posted: 10/16/2009 3:38:38 PM |
My god Ace how dare you try to put some common sense in to this discussion. Don't you know that all things politics are a sport and the American people are the ball being kicked around.
How dare you try to present some type of solution, you are to only point out the problems.
I know. Damned impertinent of me. What can I say?
Well, no worries, along comes yet another Mr. "Everthing-looks-like-a-socialist-plot" Goldfinger to try to hammer me back in line. If I were one of those conspiracy theorists who believes in a vast plot to eliminate awareness of all altenatives but corporatism (disguised as capitalism), I'd wonder about him.
Be that as it may, a result we'll all spend so much time in ideological bickering that we won't get united enough to actually fix it where it's broken. We'll have to dance through another whole generation of patches before the drumbeat has lasted long enough or gotten loud enough for the people to get it and make the right move despite all the diversionary tactics on both sides.
Let's please remember that it was Pirateheaven who first pointed out the actual cause of our health-care problem here and SD_Matt who said we should fix it first and then make futher adjustments as needed. I'm just agreeing with them. And if I'm doing so from a different POV than others who'd reflexively do so from ideology rather than analysis, that only makes their case stronger.
I'm just sayin' let's cut out all the partisan bullshit. Now that we understand the root of the problem, let's fix it. Fair enough? | |
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