Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 1:54 AM
Sat Dec 19
73 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan Morrissey
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/11/09
Public option, not private interests.
12/11/09
People seem to be forgetting that this whole thing will be lubed with subsidies. So the 55-64 set might be shocked by the amount they have to pay for a premium in 2011, but starting in 2013 they'll be subsidized. The public option wouldn't start until 2013 anyway. The overall cost of treatment, though, should be cheaper than anything they could get in a public option because Medicare rates are way cheaper that the PO would have been able to attain (the strong PO tried to peg close to Medicare and failed). Meanwhile, four years from now, the uninsured under 55 will be able to go into these exchange things without the burden of sicker old folks in their risk pool. And hopefully, if the Medicare additions give positive reviews of their new plan, even younger people will want to buy in.
It seems to me the pincer strategy of attaining single-payer, wherein Medicaid and Medicare converge and eventually swallow everybody, is still a safer bet (and yeah, I know it hasn't happened in 40 years) than this "oil spot" plan in which we expand the PO to the boundaries of Medicare and Medicaid and load it full of consumers jumping off the private insurer ship. Because at the end of that plan, we'll have to ratchet reimbursement rates down to Medicare level, and the providers will throw a shit fit--just see how they reacted to this moderate expansion of Medicare.
12/11/09
12/11/09
[www.slate.com]
While I was writing this I realized that yours is a coverage issue, that you're worried that putting more people on the Medicare payroll might restrict services because doctors won't treat them. Point taken. But Jesus, man, we can't stay terrified of providers forever. That's where the money is.
12/11/09
I was pointing out a coverage issue if there was a public option and if the public option ratcheted down provider reimbursements. I was saying it isn't going to happen because providers would leave the network and then people would choose not to have a public option.
On a different note, I think we need to completely rework provider compensation and move away from fee for service. We need a system that, at the end of the day, actually compensates primary care doctors more. Because we need good primary care doctors. There are other providers who are getting overcompensated because they get paid more for bad care resulting in complications.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
Look at PUBLIC education. You can choose to send your children to a public school (for a small fee), or, if you don't feel like the public school is adequate for your children and you can afford to send them elsewhere, you can personally opt out of the public option and send them to a PRIVATE school.
Is that socialist of us? Because then I would expect all the people hating on the public option for being socialist have their children in private school, even if it does cost my yearly salary to do so.
Why isn't the public option framed in these terms? I feel like a lot more people would understand it.
12/11/09
I'm not joking.
12/11/09
12/11/09
You'd think people would be REJOICING about this but political nonsense just gets in the way. I just don't get it... no matter what party is pushing it, if a bill would change my life for the better, I'd be clamoring to support it. It's this blind support that is so infuriating to me.
12/11/09
12/11/09
People hate paying taxes, & are convinced that tax hikes on the wealthy mean tax hikes on THEM. It is hard to explain that paying a little now means paying a lot less down the road; the Republicans prey pretty heavily on that.
12/11/09
12/11/09
Ugh, people.
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
[www.kff.org]
Just what I was looking for. Thanks.
Love your icon.
12/11/09
And thanks.
12/11/09
"It will be an opportunity for us to point out the excessive spending that's going on in this Congress," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio).
It was raised several times--7, if I'm not mistaken--in the Bush admin to finance Iraq (among other things)! They're acting like this is something new.
12/11/09
12/11/09
[news.yahoo.com]
12/11/09
12/11/09
12/11/09
I hope this is Pelosi setting up a situation where she can say the Senate proposal isn't a better idea than a public option.
I'm listening to Diane Rehm right now. The buy-in to Medicare is only for people who are uninsured. So what happens to people who insured on the individual market but have to pay more for worse insurance?
12/11/09
Thx guys!
12/11/09
I guess the insurer could offer a plan that has a $10,000 deductible and a 70% co-insurance rate. That way the low wage worker can afford the insurance. Unfortunately, the worker can't afford to go the doctor so she doesn't take care of her diabetes and has to declare bankruptcy when she ends up in the hospital and has to pay the first $10,000 and 30% of the rest of the charges.
12/11/09
I also don't understand why people think a government plan is akin to the government invading our bodies. Current practices have private corporations telling us what we can or can't do, all in the name of profit. If there was a government plan, the profit incentive would be much lower and there would be fewer restrictions on how and when money is doled out. So, in short, I'd rather have the government pay me back for expensive procedures than have a private corporation use my body for profit. But I'm preaching to the choir...
12/11/09
People believe what propaganda tells them to believe.
11/20/09
11/20/09
Unless we can tax your ass and treat you like another fucking focus group, PAC, lobbying group, etc. (we should--they've made it clear who they support clear, come hell, highwater, or warmongering, social-service cutting Republicans), GO AWAY.
For the record, I don't give a shit what the church thinks about issues that put them in line with the very liberal, either. Their organization is based on an unprovable, malleable story and is a distraction from rational policymaking. I don't care if their ARE priests or nuns who are consistently "pro-life" and against choice AND the death penalty, I don't fucking religious doctrine swaying policy, period.
This stuff makes me livid. How is there even an entryway for their influence? I don't care if anti-choice Democrats and Republicans agree with them, how are they not sent reeling away from the table of discussion? Aren't there some rules they're breaking here, couldn't the legislators that oppose this amendment tell them (and anyone benefiting from their funding or talking points) where to shove it?
11/20/09
11/20/09
Guess what, people who believe in religion: YOU DON'T GET A SAY IN MY LEGISLATION. And all you people (yes, on Jezebel) who identify yourselves with any of the religions who are trying to sway this bill yet try to claim that you are against it, maybe now's the time to reconsider your alignment, no?
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/21/09
I know what's important to me. I can negotiate morality and the concepts of empathy, personal accountability, and human dignity without another f*cking Gospel that ends with "wailing and gnashing of teeth," another story that seems even more meaningless and irrelevant the third, fourth, fiftieth time I hear it (my respect for some of the priests at my family parish notwithstanding).
The Church opposes policies that would help women and children in desperately poor countries (and here, of course, where we seem both on the cusp of sensible progress and, and then, marching backwards with our eyes wide open) where childbirth is a matter of life or death and family size--in addition to corruption, policies of richer nations, environmental stress, etc.---IS relevant to collective suffering. I think that's fucking criminal--wielding an unknowable God, and the concept of an afterlife, over human progress.
The Church's moral legitimacy as an institution is undermined by the bishops' abuse of power...settling in court, then shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish so they could molest more children. That's unspeakable for a secular, "worldly," predictably flawed seat of power....but from an institution that purportedly calls faithful and non-believers alike to a less violent, more generous, more enlightened version of humanity? An institution that demands special respect because it exists as a beacon and a respite from an immoral world?
The most distasteful thing is that this isn't solely about religious doctrine. I'm guessing half the people who identify as "Christian" in this country and root for dicks like Stupak couldn't give you three Commandments or describe one Gospel that isn't typically trotted out in popular culture. It seems we as a "Christian" nation are Christian to the extent that it allows voters--and worse, policymakers--to be morally or intellectually unaccountable when convenient. It provides a legitimate excuse where others--loyalty to a corporate interest, indefensible busybody chauvinism, whatever--would fall flat, or be more easily unearthed.
I wish I could put the story of Mike Huckabee, Wayne DuMond, and his victims on billboards...that typifies the grotesque, unapologetic arrogance and complacency that religion provides.
Is it a source, or just one mask for assholery that might emerge in another form in the absence of organized religion? I don't know. And I don't care.
I feel so helpless, and so angry. I am am sputtering with rage. Why, why can't the Democrats tell them what we've said here? Doctrine should NOT be a primary source informing policy!! And if this asshole says it isn't, how else can he defend it? Why the FUCK aren't people tearing down his stupid arguments? My tax dollars paid for a three trillion dollar war that sure as fuck offends my conscience, and it will for the next couple of decades while this generation keeps footing the bill. I pay for initiatives spearheaded by religious charities (if not churches themselves).
So what is Stupak's excuse? What other defense is there? You don't like abortion? Don't get one! We already have the Hyde Amendment! If it's no more invasive, why do we need something new?
How can anyone oppose family planning and sex ed unless you support fattening the budgets for social services, TANF, Medicaid, HeadStart, or anything else that children poor to parents who can't afford them, never wanted them, don't know how to care for them, CAN'T care for them because they're on drugs?
What's the matter, what the fuck is wrong with the media that they aren't eviscerating these pieces of shit for weak reasoning or bald-faced lies?!!
#tips
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09