#3
Most likely such a presentation in the other 49 states would have a similar reaction. If this health care plan is so good why doesn't Congress have it? was asked by an audience member. Good question. Oh, I forget, Congress is "Special."
#5
Today the Dems said they could come up with the dollars by taxing the pivate insurance companies. Not a bad method for doing away with gov't insurance competition, ie, free market capitalism, while at the same time passing along the cost to the consumer via indirect taxation.
#6
Give us Congress' helath plan (or simply the govt one). Get to choose from a variety of plans every year. If you don't have a pool that you belong to via your employer, then you get to buy insurance as if you were a government employee.
There, I fixed the whole damned thing. Now get on to important business.
#7
FYI - get to choose from a variety of PRIVATE COMPANY offered plans...
The issue isnt insurance, its the crappy limits govt puts on who can form an insurance group for the purposes of negotiations, and who can sell what benefits (restricted by states, etc).
Get that crap out of the way.
Let people pool together with Govt employees, their credit union, their church, their local D&D club, etc. Let them submit bids from any insurance company anyplace that will cover medical stuff in their areas. Allows for real competition, and real risk spreading.
If they cannot get a good risk-pool level to where the insurance companies don't offer them a deal, then they join the Fed Govt pool like an fed employee from their area, same selection, same price (employer surcharged whatever the Govt pays as a stipend if they don't offer insurance)
Dammit, its that simple, the systems are already in place, Congress/GSA own rules can be used. And it keeps the free market in place, and keeps insurance and medical decisions closer to the patients and doctors.
Problem over.
#8
Let people pool together with Govt employees, their credit union, their church, their local D&D club, etc.
OS It's been tried MET's and MeWa's don't work. Allow people to buy across state lines, get rid of mandates allow tax deductibility of individual plans and have true high risk pools for the 8 million hard core "uninsurables".
#10
Airman operated on in a government hospital has a routine surgery go wrong. Then the government hospital takes 9 hours to finally get him to a private hospital. By then both legs require amputation...
What should have been a routine medical procedure has turned into a life-threatening ordeal for Airman Colton Read and his family.
The 20-year-old graduate of Arlington's Sam Houston High School was supposed to have laparoscopic gallbladder surgery, but shortly into the procedure a young doctor accidentally nicked the aorta, located in the deepest part of the abdomen, his family said.
The resulting blood loss led to partial amputation of both of Read's legs, and complications have left him in critical condition.
Read's family has rushed from Texas to California, where Read is stationed, and is still trying to comprehend how a previously healthy young man is now fighting for survival.
#11
Government Hospitals Cannot Insure Women's Privacy.
VA hospitals aren't ensuring women's privacy, report says
WASHINGTON – Veterans Affairs Department hospitals and clinics aren't always making sure female veterans have privacy when they bathe and receive exams, government auditors said Tuesday.
As thousands of women return from Iraq and Afghanistan and enter the VA's health system, the Government Accountability Office reported that no VA hospital or outpatient clinic under review is complying fully with federal privacy requirements.
GAO investigators found that many VA facilities had gynecological tables that faced the door, including one door that opened to a waiting room. It also found instances where women had to walk through a waiting area to use the restroom, instead of it being next to an exam room as required.
At four hospitals, women were not guaranteed access to a private bathing facility. In two of those cases, there was no door lock.
A majority of the women at VA facilities are between the ages of 20 and 29, and on average are much younger than male veterans, the GAO survey found. Nearly 20 percent have been found to have post-traumatic stress disorder, and many experienced sexual trauma while serving. But a smaller percentage of eligible women than men use VA care.
Is this the deal to save California -- or shrivel it? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced a budget deal on July 20 that closes the state's staggering $26.3 billion budget shortfall with just as staggering cuts that will profoundly reduce state government and a broad array of programs. "We have come to a basic agreement that, of course, has to be ratified by the legislature," said Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who volunteered that Monday's five-hour negotiations were "like a suspense movie." But Democratic senate leader Darrell Steinberg was mournful: "This is a sober time. We have cut and we have cut in many areas that matter to real people."
Indeed, the cuts will be severe, and the Golden State that Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown built in the middle of the past century will be further damaged. Local community governments, already hard-pressed by the recession and lower revenues, will now lose at least $2 billion to the state with the promise to repay when the fiscal situation improves. The higher-education system, including the University of California, is being hit by $2 billion in cuts. The public schools, already struggling with large class sizes and less technical and support services, must cut an additional $9.5 billion and will lose thousands of teachers and staff. Tens of thousands of seniors and children will lose access to health care at a time when the national government is debating universal health coverage. The entire state workforce, except forest-fire crews and the California Highway Patrol, is on a mandatory three-day furlough each month.
"There is great concern about the magnitude of these reductions," says Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a liberal think tank. "This budget does not reflect the priorities of a vast majority of California voters, and these cuts threaten California's most vulnerable children and families during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression."
But Schwarzenegger had to act. He knows all about the political risks involved in budget crises: he rode to victory in a recall election when his predecessor, Governor Gray Davis, was hamstrung by a similar budget crisis in 2003. And this crisis has been a bad one: on July 2, as the talks stalemated, California began issuing IOUs to its creditors.
Whether it was his intention or not, Schwarzenegger has used the fiscal crisis to give California a new social contract. While many of the details of the agreement have yet to be released, he and his fellow Republicans, who form a minority in the legislature, achieved their goal of standing firm against using tax increases to close the towering deficit, forcing Democrats to accept more-stringent requirements for a number of social programs, including welfare-to-work and in-home health care. Schwarzenegger and his Republican allies successfully resisted calls from Democrats to raise taxes by saying they had agreed to a $12 billion tax increase in February as part of the state's first budget crisis of 2009, and that in a severe economic downturn, businesses and individuals could not afford any more taxes.
Democrats were able to block Schwarzenegger from using the budget crisis to eliminate California's safety net for its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. The governor had originally proposed eliminating the state's welfare-to-work program, the CalGrant program that helps thousands of low-income students attend college and a health-insurance program covering poor children.
That is small comfort. The raid on local government finances has enraged many city and county leaders. Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said, "For the state to balance its books on the backs of local government is bad public policy, morally bankrupt, and does not solve the state's problem. What happens next year? Will they come after local government again?"
#4
The Governator should have done this in his FIRST year.
He tried but a special election early in his tunure demonstrated that Californians weren't ready and he subsequently was dogged everywhere he went by public employee union demonstrators carping at him about the disaster that would result from any cuts. Being essentially a winsock he at the time did what the people demonstrated that they wanted just as he's doing now.
#7
The public schools, already struggling with large class sizes and less technical and support services, must cut an additional $9.5 billion and will lose thousands of teachers and staff.
But not one administrator or members of his staff. Go check the number of administrators the system had in the 60s and the number of levels of personnel between the CEO and the teacher. Then count the number of teachers' aides that existed back then and now. I remember the average classroom having around 36 students in primary school. The janitors having to haul in a extra desk or two at the start of the year. Somehow most of us got an education - and at the level that appropriate for that year's grade.
The Obama administration is delaying release of a congressionally mandated report on the nation's economic conditions, spawning speculation that it is trying to tamp down bad economic news to avoid further complicating the already fraught legislative debate over health care reform.
The report, which is normally published by late July, is being delayed by several weeks, the administration acknowledged on Monday. Officials said the hold-up is not unusual in presidential transition years, noting that Presidents George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton each published their initial budget updates weeks late.
"Because of the unique circumstances of a transition year, we -- like President George W. Bush in 2001 -- are releasing the mid-session review a few weeks later than as is usual in non-transition years," Kenneth S. Baer, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget, said Monday.
Asked about the speculation that the delay is linked to the ongoing health care debate, Baer responded: "I don't deal in speculation. What I know is that in transition years past both the full budgets and Mid-Session Reviews have come out later than in non-transition years and this year will be no different."
Sounds reasonable if true.
The report, which takes the measure of economic growth, job creation and budget deficits, will update assumptions that undergirded the administration's budget for next year. And while many economists say the deep recession gripping the nation is slowly easing, the administration's update is nonetheless expected to be filled with dire economic news. Many private forecasters already are predicting that unemployment, which is now at 9.5 percent nationally, will peak in double figures sometime next year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, spin-doctoring & hiding facts in data take time.
#2
Instapundit links to Megan McCardle (?) of Atlantic magazine, who says President Bush delayed the same report following his election in 2001. So this might possibly be normal rather than malevolent.
#3
And so once again we are asked to put a reasonable face on another Obama deception dressed up as transparency. This national diaster of an administration is tanking the country so fast that it needs dive brakes....
and that got called to the White House... be there at 12:45
A key House committee on Tuesday indefinitely postponed voting on health care reform legislation after Democratic leaders were unable to line up enough votes from moderate members of their own party.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee canceled the session as it faced serious concerns about the legislation from fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who hold a large number of seats on the panel. The Energy and Commerce Committee is the only House panel with jurisdiction over health care that has not completed writing its version of the reform bill.
President Obama plans to meet with those Democrats Tuesday.
"We have ongoing discussions with members," committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said in a brief statement announcing that the markup set for Tuesday had been canceled. "I think we're making good progress, and I want to pursue those discussions further."
A markup is where the committee essentially writes the bill, going through it line-by-line and accepting or rejecting amendments.
The two other House committees with jurisdiction over health care legislation -- Ways and Means and Education and Labor -- approved their versions of the package last week.
But the Energy and Commerce Committee was considered the toughest lift for advocates of the bill on the table, which could carry a price tag of up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The Blue Dog Democrats on the committee say they are worried about the cost of the bill, tax increases that could be attached to it and the speed at which the House is trying to adopt it.
"We're just not there yet," said Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., one of the lawmakers invited to the session with Obama. "We're getting there."
Hill said his main concern is not having enough time to review the legislation before a House vote, which Democratic leaders want to hold before the Aug. 7 recess.
To secure his vote, Hill said he's seeking specific cuts in cost and wants a better understanding about how "bundling" health care dollars would work. Under the current fee-for-service system, health insurance companies currently divide up payments among doctors, technicians and nurses. Bundling would tie all payments together.
"They don't have the votes with the language they've got now," said Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., another so-called Blue Dog. Boyd said he'd like to see the House take a break on health care and punt to the Senate.
Since the political chasms in the Senate are considered wider, any bill that passes the Senate could be seen as more palatable in the House.
House Minority Leader John Boehner said Tuesday that it's time to hit the reset button in light of the problems on the Energy and Commerce Committee. "It's time to scrap this bill. Let's start over in a bipartisan way," he said.
Despite Boyd's skepticism, he said he wasn't ready to throw in the towel on health care reform. "Anything can happen," he said. "This place is known for miracles."
Many conservative Democrats on the committee are already reeling from criticism they've heard for voting for a landmark climate and energy bill in June. Many of those lawmakers are reluctant to take a tough vote again.
For days, Obama has hammered his desire for a bill this summer during public appearances and private meetings. He's delivering remarks on health care Tuesday afternoon, and plans to hold a prime-time press conference Wednesday. "I want this done now. If there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town," Obama said in an interview with PBS. But he suggested that he'd be willing to put off his deadline slightly for the sake of passing a bill.
#4
What is with the donks? First Hillary tried to ramrod health care. Now BO is trying to ram health care down our throats whether we want it or not. We had TennCare in Tennessee for the poor during the Clinton administration . I think Tennessee was Hillary's trial balloon for national health care. We lived with it for a few years and it proved to be an unmanageable, costly, dismal failure. It nearly bankrupted the State. We had people moving into Tennessee from everywhere to obtain free health care. A democratic governor finally scuttled the program in favor of Medicaid. Massachusetts is not doing well with its universal health care. I think Vermont might have universal health care. I don't know how it's doing. I don't know of too many programs run by the Federal government that don't end up being politicized, costly, boondoggles. The present approach by the government does not attempt to address health care in any meaningful way that I can determine. If it passes it will further break the bank.
Gaffe? Or Freudian slip?
Would health care reform bring "greater inefficiencies" to the country's health care system?
That's exactly what Obama said Monday when he spoke about health care reform at the Childrens National Medical Center in Washington.
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system," Obama said in remarks after a health care roundtable with physicians, nurses and health care providers. "And greater stability and security to America's families and businesses."
The White House quickly recognized the mistake and inserted a "sic" in the remarks sent to reporters on Monday afternoon.
Josh Earnest, a White House deputy press secretary, said Obama "misspoke" in his remarks
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Misspoke, my ass.
He had a moment of clarity in front of the American people.
#5
Barry appears to be a man under an extreme amount of pressure and frustration lately. This health care issue has become an obsession with him. He's slipping up and becoming more...'Biden like' nearly every day. I can't help but wonder why. What is behind it all?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Is this the deal to save California -- or shrivel it? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced a budget deal on July 20 that closes the state's staggering $26.3 billion budget shortfall with just as staggering cuts that will profoundly reduce state government and a broad array of programs. "We have come to a basic agreement that, of course, has to be ratified by the legislature," said Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who volunteered that Monday's five-hour negotiations were "like a suspense movie." But Democratic senate leader Darrell Steinberg was mournful: "This is a sober time. We have cut and we have cut in many areas that matter to real people."
