How NOT to "fix" medicare!

[SuperScout]

Aren't you getting tired of playing the spoiled little child, with your banal name-calling? I would have thought you might have achieved a bit a maturity by now, but alas, I erred again! And instead of trying to list a governmental success story, you trot out all the same old trite, stale and fallacious stories about how the dastardly Republicans are going to starve the poor, take away all the benefits for the seniors, and claim ownership of the moon for the oil magnates. Yale professor? BFD. His political bias far exceeds any lame attempt at objectivity, and his scholarship is faulty: he bases his entire premise on something that happened, while ignoring or denying that an alternative solution might have worked as well if not better. But if you want to continue to believe that government solutions are better than the private sector, go ahead with your socialist beliefs.

[SuperScout]

As Congress fights over health care coverage, the public is expressing support for private sector options.

A recent Zogby poll reveals:

* 82 percent of all voters surveyed and 67 percent of seniors agree that "seniors should have the option of picking a private health plan approved by the Medicare program to provide their health benefits.?

* Only 16 percent of seniors believe that the Senate drug plan would be better than the one they currently have, while 74 percent predicted it wouldn't.

* Only 42 percent of seniors without drug coverage said they would be likely to buy the new policy.

* 66 percent fear that a government-controlled prescription drug program could interfere with their current private plans and create a dependency on government.

* 78 percent were concerned that government involvement could lead to government control of drug research and development.

* 51 percent fear that government control would limit drug choice, while 43 percent believe that their doctor would still be in charge.

* 77 percent of all adults and 80 percent of seniors say that believe that seniors should pay something for their drugs to avoid overburdening the Medicare system.

* Voters were evenly split ? 44 percent to 44 percent -- over whether the federal government or private health plans would secure lower drug prices for seniors.

* 49 percent indicated that research and development of new drugs is more important than lowering prices, while 40 percent favored lowering prices.

For Democrats who hoped to build their 2004 campaign around expanded government control of health care, it may be time to go back to the drawing board.

[Stick]

Tell me, I just don't get it.
The reason why we pay so much for Rx drugs is because the Rx companies tell us that they pay so much for the research necessary to develope those drugs.
But the government susidises those companies in that developement cost.
Your tax dollars at work.
Who's fooling who? And why are we the fools or is the proper word gullible sucker?
What is the cost of the raw materials?
Who's making the bucks?
I took my needed drugs this morning and guess what?
The taxpayer paid for them again.
Thanks folks. I needed that. They kept me alive one more day.

[Gimpy]

All you have to do to see where that $$$$$ is going for those "expensive" drugs and "research & development" of them is to look at the annual reports of the drug companies, or at Fortune 500's list of MOST profitable companies! Just about ALL of the major drug companies are AT (or near) the TOP of companies with the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS in this country!

Don't worry though, I'm sure they'll use some of those "profits" to help see that low-income and disabled and sick elderly folks will get a "break" on the drug costs, YEAH--RIGHT!

[Gimpy]

Take a big CHOMP on THIS Super!

More EVIDENCE to the "contrary" of your (and the REUBS) "ideas" for Medicares so-called "improvements" in the "compassionate conservative" methods!

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Associated Press.---July 3, 2003

Proponents argue that the new measures provide more money to the private plans and that, ultimately, the private sector can provide better care for less money. But some policy analysts say that private health plans have never proved to save significant sums of money and that Washington is at risk of repeating its mistake of trying to encourage private health plans while keeping a lid on costs. It is also at risk of spending more on these plans without achieving the promised benefits.
Congress already seems amenable to paying the plans more to participate in the existing program, and legislators are discussing other ways of reducing the plans' financial risk.
"We believe we are delivering a package of benefits that is value added to the traditional program," said Dr. John W. Rowe, the chairman and chief executive of Aetna, a large insurer that now provides coverage under Medicare.
But analysts worry that similar plans have never met the expectation of saving a lot of money in the long run.
Over the last 30 years, Medicare has more effectively controlled health care costs than private insurers did, according to a recent study by the Urban Institute. The study found that since 1970 spending per enrollee had grown an average of 9.6 percent a year at Medicare, and 11.1 percent at private insurers.
In 1997, under a program called Medicare+Choice, the government tried to encourage the elderly to enroll in H.M.O.'s, including well-known health companies like Aetna. But then medical costs began to rise sharply and the federal government reduced payments to the plans as part of a larger clampdown on Medicare costs under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The plans could then no longer afford to offer the generous benefits that lured people to enroll in the first place.
Half of the plans disappeared and many others cut benefits drastically. Today there are 4.6 million Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in managed care, more than 25 percent fewer than there were six years ago.
According to Stuart H. Altman, a health care policy professor at Brandeis University, the private plans operate under a number of disadvantages to the traditional Medicare program. First, Medicare operates with much lower administrative costs: those costs eat up as much as 15 percent of the revenue of private plans. Medicare's administrative costs are typically one-fifth that. Second, Medicare is able to drive a much harder bargain with hospitals and doctors than the private plans can.
"It turns out that administered pricing has been an effective way to control costs," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of the administrators who headed Medicare under the Clinton administration. In an analysis she wrote for the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law on why so many plans left after the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Ms. DeParle said the government's goal of saving money conflicted with the desire to encourage the development of the health plans in the market.
"The fundamental problem is that we still have not figured out how to save money with managed care in Medicare and maintain, at the same time, its attractiveness to beneficiaries," Ms. DeParle concluded in the article.

Even in their most comprehensive forms, managed-care plans have demonstrated an ability to achieve only modest savings delivering Medicare benefits, according to a recent article posted on the Web site of the academic journal Health Affairs by Marsha Gold, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research.
Health plans do not participate in Medicare in some areas of the country, like West Virginia and South Dakota, where negotiating with doctors and hospitals is difficult. Ms. Gold said that may not change under the new law. "You can't just legislate and expect them to come," she said.
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[Gimpy]

The best way to understand the right-wing social vision ? and what is wrong with it ? is to start with a very simple ?thought experiment?. Imagine a millionaire is marooned on a desert island ? kind of like Mr. Howell on ?Gilligan?s Island?, for a corny example. What is his fortune worth?

The answer is absolutely nothing. In fact, his fortune is less than worthless. It is meaningless.

?Wealth? has no tangible reality outside of the social system that creates and regulates its social conventions and symbols. In fact, ?wealth? is based on an entire infrastructure of legal concepts. These are things like ?property rights?, ?contract rights?, ?legal tender?, ?negotiable instruments?, ?corporations? and the ?stocks? and ?bonds? those ?fictitious persons? issue. On a desert island, your trunk full of cash and your stocks and bonds are so much toilet paper ? and they aren?t even very good for that.

So when cheap-labor conservatives say that ?government plays no role in the private economy?, I just laugh. In fact, government has created a vast web of infrastructure, conventions and institutions that make our advanced industrial society possible. The next time a cheap-labor conservative claims ?government programs never work?, lay this ?laundry list? on him. It?s long and you can shorten it, but not too much. You want a list just starting to get tedious. You want your reader just at the point ? but not much past it ? of saying ?alright already, I get the point?.

For examples of basic legal infrastructure, try these:



? The Judicial System.

? Land Records

? Corporation laws.

? US Patent Office

? The Banking System

? Negotiable Instruments

? Stable Currency

? Property and Contract Rights



How about physical infrastructure ? all the way back to the days of George Washington.



? Erie Canal.

? Transcontinental Railroad

? Hoover Dam

? Tennessee Valley Authority

? Roads

? Sewer, Water and Power Grids

? Interstate Highways

? Air Traffic Control

? Communication and Weather Satellites

? Government subsidized research and development into aeronautics, jet propulsion, radar, transistors, semi-conductors, drugs, and don?t forget the internet.

What kind of fortunes have been made in this country, thanks to this short and far from complete list of public sector infrastructure? So should anyone be offended that we also provide other infrastructure and services like:


? Homestead Act

? National Parks

? Food and Drug Administration

? Anti-trust laws

? Child labor laws

? Eight Hour Work Day

? National Labor Relations Act

? Farm Subsidies [Debatable, but Republicans don?t dare oppose them.]

? Fair Labor Standards Act

? Works Projects Administration [WPA built rural schools, parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway, etc.]

? Social Security

? GI Bill of Rights

? FHA Mortgages

? Federal Assistance to Higher Education

? Environmental Protection Agency

? Job Corps

? Head Start

? Medicare



If our government provides infrastructure and services that benefit our wealthy elites, does any sane and sensible person really have a problem providing infrastructure and services that benefit regular people?

The cheap-labor conservatives have a problem with it. They think infrastructure and services for anybody but them is ?big government tyranny?.

The truth is that if you live ?paycheck to paycheck?, the cheap-labor conservatives would provide you absolutely no infrastructure or services of any kind. No safety net. No unemployment insurance. No family or medical leave. No standards of workplace safety. No right to organize. No minimum wage. No regulation of working hours. No overtime. No Social Security or Medicare. Some extremists even defend child labor, and would eliminate universal public education. Not only do destitute people work cheap, so do ignorant and illiterate people.

And of course they are complete hypocrites.

Consider the business corporation ? a fictitious ?person? made possible by laws enabling them. Legislatures decided ? in the late nineteenth century ? that making it easy for wealthy investors to form large-scale organizations was in the ?public interest?. Without them we would have no steel industry, oil industry, automobile industry, aerospace industry or shipping industry. [In fact, syndicating the risks of shipping were the origin of business corporations ? and they were promoted by government from the beginning.] We would also have no air pollution, no ?sweatshops?, and little need for labor unions.

In fact, without corporations, we wouldn?t need a lot of the infrastructure, services and regulations necessary to protect us from them. Hey, you could try this approach. ?Alright all you cheap-labor conservatives, you?re right. None of that legal protection from corporations is ?principled?. So let?s just get rid of corporations. We didn?t have to create them, and we don?t have to keep them ? especially if they?re going to kick us around.?

Needless to say, cheap-labor conservatives are big fans of industrial capitalism, and the legal basis for them, the business corporation. But they don?t like unions ? or any of the rest of the protection from them. Apparently it is okay if rich people organize themselves into huge economic bargaining units called ?corporations? ? but it is ?tyranny? if you do virtually the same thing by forming a union. It?s legitimate for the government to empower the wealthy to get even wealthier, but ?tyranny? to empower you to hold your own against them.

See how understanding cheap-labor conservatives is all so very simple? Government infrastructure and services are for them, not you. Their infrastructure and services are ?natural?, but your infrastructure and services are ?unnatural interference?. In other words, they get what they want, you take what they give you ? and they never give you very much. Because what they want isn?t ?wealth?. What they want is power ? over you. They want the power to maintain their position in the social hierarchy government infrastructure and services have helped create. Maintaining their position means maintaining your position. They want you bargaining with them on their terms, and that means they want you broke, ignorant and scared ? and they don?t want ?big government? helping you out.

That, my friends, is what cheap-labor conservatives are all about.

Now SuperHypocrite, how's THAT for your "governmental success stories" and "all the same old trite, stale and fallacious stories about how the dastardly Republicans" are screwing the HELL OUT OF ORDINARY CITIZENS!
**********************************************

[reconeil]

Say what??? I thought this was a discusion about fixing MY/OUR governmentally managed retirement package and/or Social Security and Medicaire, 50-50 paid into lifetime by both employee and employer? What happened? What does SS & Medicaire have to do with taxes, governmental programs and such? It most certainly shouldn't. In fact, all politicos screwing-around-with-such a pre-paid for retirement package,...should be taken out and hung. Want to give people better programs or benefits, just increase taxes, as is normally done for everything else.

Neil :cl:

[Gimpy]

But, our old friend and compadre from the great state of Texas (somewhere near Loma Linda I believe?), Super-so-called-SmartFella (or at least that what HE thinks) asked for some "evidence" contrary to his warped and unrealistic perception of what "success" is as it relates to governmental programs. I sincerely hope the above documention of factual "lessons" in this category has met his expectations. If not, I should be MORE than happy to provide further, compelling and overwhelming evidence to help him (and others for that matter) restore his long-suffering lucidity. God knows he needs all the help I can give him. As do MOST ultra-right-wing, neo-cheap-labor-conservatives that espouse such nonsense as he does.

More later, ta, ta! :cl: :cl:

[SuperScout]

In a typically "let's change the subject because we have no valid argument," Gimpy has dredged up some off-the-wall pasting, ranting on and on about how government does work. Instead of civil response, he continually resorts to name calling, attempts at ridicule, and childish humor.

Who said all government programs don't work? Did anybody ever bring up the judicial system before? No. Obviously, it is part of the constitutionally mandated pieces of the marvelous mosaic we call the federal system. Although some of the touted examples Gimpy found are questionable, i.e., Social Security, Headstart, Job Corps, he pastes this laundry list of programs that are within the legitimate purview of the federal government. My objections to the growing entitlement mentality of this country, espoused, encouraged and enunciated by liberals, is what is and has been bringing us harm, higher taxes, and huge waste, all without the benefit of being constitutionally sanctioned.

It has become obvious to me that the bigotry, animosity and self-serving contempt of some people here are not worthy of any further participation on my part.

[Gimpy]

Damn Super, you're one to be talkin! With your Holyier-than-thou, sanctimonious, bull$hiting attempts to convince other folks that "your" way is the "best" way----along with all those other so-called "compassionate conservatives".

Now let's "examine" some of YOUR statements previous, OK??

Your words, and I quote "If more governmental involvement in Medicare, Pharmacare, or any other taxpayer provided benefit is best for our country, simply re-think all the wonderful programs and benefits the government has already given us:"--end quote.

More of your words"And instead of trying to list a governmental success story, you trot out all the same old trite, stale and fallacious stories about how the dastardly Republicans are going to starve the poor, take away all the benefits for the seniors,"--end quote.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO, let's see here, you want "evidence" or a "list" governmental success" stories, and I GIVE them to you---
ALL TRUE---ALL OF WHICH YOU HAVE NO VALID, INTELLEGENT RESPONSE TOO! But, you STILL say, and I quote again, "Gimpy has dredged up some off-the-wall pasting, ranting on and on about how government does work. Instead of civil response, he continually resorts to name calling, attempts at ridicule, and childish humor. " End quote!

More of YOUR wordfs----"Who said all government programs don't work?--end quote--

It looks kinda like YOU DID!

Again YOUR words. ------"For all its ills, the private sector solves problems best.
but our present system, and the delusional attempts to add more government involvement are simply that: more good money being pored down the rathole of inefficiency," end quote.

Now if THAT ain't saying "government programs DON'T WORK----" Just what in the hell is it??

Sorry you can't reply with any factual, intellegent response other than the nonsense you've posted so far----but it really doesn't surprise me at all--typical ultra-right-wing, neo-cheap-labor-conservative tactics, as usual!


Later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!