We recently discussed the stinging criticism of Sen. Chuck Schumer who called Obamacare a colossal political mistake and something that was not a priority for the American people. It was a remarkable admission from the third ranking and one of the most liberal Senate Democrats. Now, perhaps the most liberal departing member has given his own departing shot at the White House and Democratic Leadership. Retiring Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa has gone public with criticism that the Affordable Care Act was badly written and should not have been passed. Like Schumer, he is not questioning the value of health care but said that the current law was not worth doing because of its inherent flaws.
Harkin’s criticism was a bit different from Schumer, who indicated that he would have preferred not to have passed health care in the first term at all. Harkin told The Hill newspaper that ObamaCare that the leadership and White House blew it when they had the majority and should have gone all the way to guarantee funding and a more logical structure to the program: “We had the power to do it in a way that would have simplified healthcare, made it more efficient and made it less costly and we didn’t do it. So I look back and say we should have either done it the correct way or not done anything at all.”
I spoke on Capitol Hill before the passage of the ACA and remarked that the legislation was in the worst condition that I had seen in 30 years in terms of a major piece of legislation. As someone who supports national health care, it was very disappointing, if not alarming, to see the condition of the law. The few sections that I reviewed read like a first draft from a LA’s computer. Democratic staffers told me later that they agreed and that the legislation was not ready. However, with the death of Kennedy (and the replacement by Brown), the Democratic leadership and the White House decided to push through the poorly crafted law on a muscle vote — which led to a number of Democrats being defeated on the marginal vote. The result is that the ACA has been a continual struggle as hundreds of serious drafting errors and flaws have had to be addressed.
Harkin is the retiring chairman of the Senate health panel and helped write the law.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3363559
How to rein in medical costs. Originally posted by Squeeky, in a discussion on medical spending.
Why would I defend a true single payer system Chip? That’s not what I’m in favor of. Medicare for All would work. Medicare is already in place, people love it, expand it to cover everyone. Medicare with a supplemental and for the very poor Medicaid would be the supplemental. Now Chip, tell us why the staus quo would be a better option. Back to the days of using the ER has healthcare provider and back to the days of people being denied health insurance and thereby healthcare, because of preexisting conditions? Yeah, that worked great, huh?
Vixpix1, thanks for the illustration of my 12:21.
Inga, I supported the reforms advocated by McCain, one of which Obama demagogued and then (partially) implemented in a backwards, stealthy manner.
But if you’re asking for my ideal, it’s a variant of the German and Swiss systems, in which a basic standard of care is subsidized by the gov (thru income taxes, not an absurd tax/subsidy insurance system) and a private system w/o tax exemptions is allowed to function. By “basic” I mean the state-of-the-art as of 20 years earlier (so, e.g., only generic drugs). Interstate portability is the major issue to be resolved, but I think it’s doable.
For the reasons I stated @11:29, I don’t think my ideal system is politically feasible, so pragmatically I favor establishing a national high-risk pool for people w/ pre-existing conditions who lost their previous plane, and abolishing the tax exemption for employer-provided plans.
Inga, thanks for the support. As Victor Lazlo says to Rick in Casablanca, “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win”.
Why would I Chip? I don’t advocate a strict single payer system. Medicare for All is what I think would work. So let’s hear from you why you think the status quo is best.
C’mon Inga, tell us about the level of care on offer at the VA.
Vixpix, it’s you who is uninformed.
1. Antibiotics are sold OTC in Spain. Do you know why that’s not true in the US? (Hint: It has nothing to do with Milton Friedman.)
2. Congratulations on your daughter’s successful appendectomy. For her sake and yours, I hope she doesn’t get any type of cancer other than in the larynx or the stomach, b/c the 5-year survival rates are lower in Spain than in the US on all the others. (see Table 5 here.) For all cancers, the 5-year survival rate in the US is 65.9, vs. 49.3 in Spain.
Vixpix1,
My relatives in Germany love their healthcare. As do my relatives in Canada and Australia, they all have said they would NEVER trade our system for theirs.
Vixpix1
Pogo is a physician, he should know better, but he is also extremely ideological.
http://www.pnhp.org/
Medicare for All. Physicians for a National Health Program
Pogo Hears A Who and Chip S — I don’t know whether you guys are stupid or lying or both. France has the most highly rated health care system in the world, with medical outcomes as good as ours, covering every citizen, and they do it for almost exactly half as much per person as we do. You can cry “Let loose the dogs of Friedman!”all you want, that won’t change the reality. The old system we had used 25% to 30% of premiums for administrative costs. Medicare uses 5%, and the Taiwanese national health plan uses 2%, another reality you can neither change nor challenge.
Let me add a couple of items from my personal experience. My daughter lives in Spain. She’s had two kids, an appendectomy, and the children have had the gamut of minor mishaps common to children. The medical treatment they have received has been indistinguishable from what they would have gotten in the states. On one of my trips to Spain, I came down with a bug. A doctor gave me a prescription for a common antibiotic, which cost one tenth as much overseas as it does over here.
The reason America doesn’t have what every industrialized country has is that guys like you cling to an ideology that says that anything the private sector does is better than anything the government does (though I bet you don’t refuse your Medicare). By he way, Germany has had a national health plan for over a hundred and twenty years — I’ve heard Germans called a lot of things, but never stupid.
Ya, that was pretty much the point.
The VA is not Medicare. It’s single payer.
Indeed, should’ve done it the right way the first time, while they had the majority in both houses, steered away from health insurance and passed a form of national healthcare. The fight was intense anyway, it should’ve been worth fighting for.
What they have in abundance is self-righteousness.
Facts and logic are just white privilege, DBQ.
Social justice warriors have righteousness.
Pogo – social justice warriors don’t have righteousness, they ‘feel’ righteousness. If you don’t feel it, it cannot exist.
The rates without the ACA were at least ten times that.
No they were not. That is just not true. I was a licensed insurance agent as well as a financial adviser, investment representative, stock broker at the time. The ACA was one of the main reasons I ceased my health insurance business, which I must admit was pretty much of a sideline anyway so no big loss.
A young single male (who was in decent health) could get a medical insurance policy for a very low price. Less than $60 a month. A guy in that position doesn’t need to cover much more than catastrophic events. Now it is several hundred dollars a month and covers crap that he doesn’t want or need. Either buy insurance or cough up a fine.
A young guy who might be lucky enough to have a job where the insurance was employer sponsored didn’t have any costs, usually. Now a group plan which is required to have all the unwanted bells and whistles the young guy has a much bigger out of pocket premium cost and the deductibles are climbing ever higher.
If you were a young single guy with health problems and were under a certain level of income, then you had the alternative of Medicaid or in Calif Medi-Cal.
How long before we start hearing again about the great healthcare provided by the VA?
alankdkd, I cited a stat from my own personal experience.
So you’re just making up crap. I’m guessing it’s not the first time for you.
England’s NHS loves to kill off its burdensome patients:
Top doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
“Professor says doctors use ‘death pathway’ to euthenasia of the elderly
Around 29 per cent of patients that die in hospital are on controversial ‘care pathway”
Yay for single payer!
It combines trains with health care!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Umschlagplatz_loading.jpg
(Godwin nods.)
“…before the ACA a single male in his mid-20s could buy pretty good health insurance for $51 a month.”
The rates without the ACA were at least ten times that.