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9/15/2010
Petri: How those on the left explain it
Back in 1994, when the Democrats lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings sought to explain this inexplicable event. "The voters had a temper tantrum last week," he said.
The pundits are at it again. They figure the current Congress has done all sorts of great things for the country - passed a $787 billion stimulus plan that yielded a 9.6% unemployment rate and 1.6% economic growth in the second quarter; approved a trillion-dollar national health care plan which puts the government in charge of 1/6th of the U.S. economy; paid for it, in part, by cutting $500 billion out of Medicare; approved (in the House) a climate change plan which, in January 2008, candidate Obama had noted would cause electricity rates to "skyrocket," and much, much more. (I fought against each of those initiatives.)
With what they see as terrific accomplishments, liberal commentators are at a loss to explain why the country seems so ungrateful. But they try.
According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, "Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America - a rational man running a most irrational nation..." Slate's Jacob Weisberg blames the "childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large." The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson says "Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue.... It's a temper tantrum."
There is plenty to be mad about, but public anger crystallized during the health care debate. A solid majority of the public made it quite clear that they thought "ObamaCare" was a monumental, life-or-death mistake, but the President and his allies rammed it through with the argument that the public will learn to love it.
It was arrogance squared. Supporters of ObamaCare, both in the media and in Congress, thought they knew better than the people what is good for them. It naturally follows that some of them equate resistance with childishness.
To use an overused phrase: "They just don't get it." Our republic is supposed to function with the consent of the governed. Congress needs to get back in the habit of listening to our citizens.
Tom Petri is a Republican and represent the residents of the 6th Congressional District in Wisconsin, as he has for 38 years.
COMMENTS
****Congress needs to get back in the habit of listening to our citizens.****
In future the good congressman might want to keep this in mind. He's the biggest pork barreler around. More than one longtime legislator has come a-cropper with their porkulus ways.
Of course, maybe his constituents like it that way. I didn't see them putting up a more conservative candidate to run against him.
C.R. Stevenson (Thu Sep 16 08:26:48 2010)
I think some clever (??) Dems crossed over and put some unelectable Tea Partiers in the R's candidacy seats. It's going to be an interesting November. And for those D's who voted for Walker thinking he is easy to beat, may just get stuck with ... Walker.
Jack Lohman (Thu Sep 16 08:27:57 2010)
And incidentally, politicians like to site how bad ObamaCare is, and it is indeed bad. But they always omit what the majority of Americans really wanted -- single-payer Medicare-for-all which would have saved $400 billion per year. Petri failed to lift a finger to do what was right.
What did he say? "Congress needs to get back in the habit of listening to our citizens???"
Jack Lohman (Thu Sep 16 08:35:05 2010)
Jack maybe you could back up your contention with some polling results. Single payer is no panacea. many of those advocating also decry industrial "monopolies." So why is monopoly payment a good thing? Ever hear the maxim,
he who has the gold makes the rules?" Single payer means that the one paying will have more to do with medical decisions, patients and doctors less. Indeed, the so called Health care reform goes a far piece in that very direction. The LAST thing I want is my political enemies to have the power of life and death over me. Especially with this not-so-nice group of thugs in charge, we can expect medicine to be used as a political weapon sooner rather than later. It already happens in countries with socialized medicine.
Ken Van Doren (Thu Sep 16 08:51:32 2010)
Jack, the Dem vote may have been a small part of the Walker vote, but I believe Walker had something like 76% in Milwaukee area. Since one is mayor and one is county administrator in Milwaukeee, seems that those in the know, from that area, didn't want much to do with Barrett. Tells a little something perhaps.
John Hyland (Thu Sep 16 08:52:40 2010)
Ken, let's dispel the rhetoric about "if govt pays they will pull the plug on Granny." Or thereabouts.
Single-payer only means that "approved" care is paid for and "unapproved" is not. That does NOT mean that you cannot go outside of the system and pay for fringe procedures on your own, the good old-fashioned free-market way, with cash dollars.
I've been on Medicare for five years and let me assure you that doctors and patients (mostly patients) call the shots. And if I demand a procedure that is not approved I can get it... with cash dollars. So *I* have the power of life and death. Please, for the sake of your kids and grandkids, get your facts straight.
Importantly, single-payer will be funded by the national infrastructure, not businesses. It means a taxpayer bailout of 100% of those businesses in the US that employ US workers. They'll then be able to compete with manufacturers around the world that are not burdened with health care costs.
JOBS will be saved and created and our economy will benefit. Fewer jobs will leave the US as a result. (Today more Big Three cars are manufactured in Canada than in Detroit because their health care costs are $800 per employee per year there and $7000 here.)
Jack Lohman (Thu Sep 16 09:29:22 2010)
Dear Congressman Petri,
Unfortunately you have chosen to use the same half truths that your party hopes to ride to victory. I could engage you on several of the facts but let me tell you from the heart what health care reform has meant for me as a small businessperson with an individual policy:
A) we will now get preventive care covered by the HSA policy (difference in premium $70 per month before Sept 23 and after) so I assume that is the market price for that. Up to now we have had to shell out $1000 to $3000 for a colonoscopy and hundreds for mammograms
B) we have alternatives other than bankruptcy if God forbid we have a health issue that is chronic and we lose our policy somehow and are uninsurable
C) Our kids can stay on our policy to age 26 (yes we have to recognize some income from that) but at least we know they will have options. At least we know that they will be able to choose a career based on the career and not based on whether they have health coverage.
D) My companies will be able to have a 35% tax credit if we can start our own plan. so, we can try to do the right thing
E) in 2014 I can be part of a large buying group that gives me (as an individual or small business) some negotiating power for having better choices. Right now it is the large employers who do not generate the jobs who have all the advantages, we get squat.
And sometime , if your party allows it, there will be pricing transparency (like your colleague Steve Kagen has proposed) that will really drive down prices by allowing consumers to see actually what something should cost in advance. That, combined with HSAs will start to bring the health care market closer to real competition that it is today.
I suggest so that you know what you are talking about that you drop your nice employer (taxpayer) paid coverage and try it on you own like I do. Then you will see what philosophical nonsense your comments are against the real achievements of the health care reforms.
dave allen (Thu Sep 16 13:01:28 2010)
Jack- "Please, for the sake of your kids and grandkids, get your facts straight."
Wow. This coming from a fellow in this and other discussions who shows so little regard for fact and logic...
"Importantly, single-payer will be funded by the national infrastructure, not businesses. "
No Jack, EVERYTHING, Public AND PRIVATE MUST be funded by productive effort, that almost exclusively happens in the PRIVATE, that is, business sector. You can add it to the tally of government, but through taxes, businesses and ultimately consumers will pay 100% of the cost-just like now. Only difference is, throw in all the government meddling, the pork, the new bureaucracies, government inefficiency and more, it will cost us MORE, not less.
"It means a taxpayer bailout of 100% of those businesses in the US that employ US workers. They'll then be able to compete with manufacturers around the world that are not burdened with health care costs."
Any rational mind can see the blatant illogic of this statement. See above. Instead of coming out of profits or income, these expenses will be added to the cost of taxes, which are added to the costs of products and services, and we will be worse, not better off as government interference adds to the cost-just as it has since government first got involved, but especially since the 1960's. Empiracal evidence is contrary to your claims.
"JOBS will be saved and created and our economy will benefit. Fewer jobs will leave the US as a result. (Today more Big Three cars are manufactured in Canada than in Detroit because their health care costs are $800 per employee per year there and $7000 here.)"
Doyle and company claim that their version of cap and tax at the state level is a green jobs bill, but that is a lie, as increased energy costs will DESTROY jobs. Yours is but another example of a lie told over and over in the hopes that the rest of us will turn off our brains. Not happening Jack.
Ken Van Doren (Fri Sep 17 00:11:10 2010)
Ken, I agree that 100% of funding ultimately comes from private labor. From the 80% of people who have jobs. Businesses are just the mechanism by which we pass those funds, after the CEOs and investors have taken a major portion off the top. We private workers are funding all charity care, as well as the Social Security and Medicare that we have been forced to fund over the last 50 years.
I know, I know. There are the "perfects" of the world who want to go it alone. And then if they get into trouble in later years jump onto the public wagon everybody else has been funding. But it isn't that way. Get used to it, or change it (I know; you're trying).
And yes... we pay a heavy price for the "government meddling, the pork, the new bureaucracies." But that's because we allow (actually demand) that politicians take private cash bribes rather than fund their elections publicly.
Which we could do for about $5 per taxpayer per year, but we have ideologues that want to keep that $5 for themselves and oppose using it to fund clean elections.
Your criticism of both public funding of campaigns and public funding of health care are way off base and fail at the practical level. Unless you want to see 20% of our health care dollars transfer to insurance executives and investors, they are a third wheel. Much like giving the pizza delivery guys a chauffeur... a total waste. Total “make-work.“
No other country (sans South Africa) has a health care system like ours. ALL of them have some form of universal health care, and they spend half the dollars and have better outcomes than we do. Pragmatically, unless you are an insurance agent, you’d have to agree that 100% of health care costs are borne by the 80% of the employed workers, and it makes no sense to siphon off some for the executives.
Jack Lohman (Fri Sep 17 06:53:33 2010)
Well said Jack.
I want to emphasize what you said. I expect that some will just gloss over it. This part bears repeating.
ALL of them have some form of universal health care, and they spend half the dollars and have better outcomes than we do.
Dean Weichmann (Fri Sep 17 09:07:02 2010)
My daughter had nursemaid’s elbow. We sat in the “casualty” (ER) waiting room. I glanced around. Nearby sprawled a semiconscious man with a bloody battered head. A woman hunched in a chair rocking in pain. The doors opened and two ambulance cots were wheeled in; one taken back immediately, the other having to wait just like the rest of us. This was life in Britain: no priority for ambulance patients, no apparent triage, overcrowded, dirty, smelly, archaic healthcare facilities.
That’s why I get riled to hear people talking about a “single-payer system,” a.k.a. socialized medicine. You hear these catchalls constantly; but what do they mean? Take "no access to healthcare." That's a fave of people who don't know what they're talking about. According to one of them, "People get refused medical procedures because they cost too much so the insurance company denies them." Oh really? The doctor says, "I'm just not willing to do this for you", is that it?
Actually, NOBODY'S refusing to let you have whatever procedure you want, but they may refuse to PAY for it for you. There IS a difference. So if you absolutely must have that CT, go ahead and have it done. You might get a bill later, but that doesn't mean you've been REFUSED.
In a national system, however, actual, real refusal to do something for a patient occurs. How'd you like to be diagnosed with cancer, and on a waiting list to get treatment, AFTER already waiting 3 years to see an oncologist? How'd you like to be having a heart attack, to be told to go home from the ER... you go home, and promptly die? How'd you like to be a patient in an ambulance, driving around for FIVE HOURS, to different towns, trying to find an ER that, literally, will allow you to be unloaded there? None of these examples are hyperbole; they're dead serious truth. I know, I used to live in the UK, and these are personal examples.
Another sick phrase is "countless Americans don't get basic care". First, if they're uncounted, how does anybody know about them? What do they mean, "not getting basic care"? I guess if you're too lazy (oops, "busy") to keep your prenatal appointment, that counts as "not getting care". But if you decide later to come to ER, where we HAVE to see you, due to EMTALA, then you are getting care, so that doesn't count then. And the taxpayers get to pay a bigger bill for you, than they'd have had to pay if you'd just kept that appointment.
There’s the money issue for some: they can’t afford to see a doctor in his office but they have enough to splash around making an ER visit? But, of course, they don’t INTEND to pay for that visit. In fact, when we see “self pay” on a patient’s information, we can assume 90% of the time it’s “self” only and no pay; the hospital has to eat the cost. There are, of course, responsible people who DO pay their bills, but they are sadly the minority.
Say you “don’t have the money” for your meds (because it all got used up on your flashy jewelry, your cell phone—I can’t afford one of those!--tattoos, beer, or cigarettes). Just come to the ER so the working people can pay for you. After all, why try to be responsible and actually PAY for your insulin, when you can let things go and end up in a diabetic crisis that we have to pay for? Oops, again, that doesn’t count as “not getting care” because we just admitted you to ICU, even though you didn’t care for yourself.
Oh, I get it...you OD'd on narcotics (we won't say how you got them), and your kids didn't call 911 right away, as they're so used to you passing out, not a biggie. And if they called, the medics'd give you that nasty narcan and end the trip, and then you'd be mad at the kids for spoiling the fun. So they leave you till the next day, THEN call 911. There, that counts as "not getting access to care"! (Real life examples from my ER)
Here's another old hairy one: "The Swedes (or fill in country of choice) have better care than the US." Oh, really? If Sweden was such an Eden, why is their suicide rate so high? Why are there so many alcoholics that they have a special home insurance company for teetotallers only? (With, of course, lower rates).
Who scores health-care systems? WHO! WHO scores nations on various aspects of health care, and brownie points are given for having socialized medicine, whereas penalties are awarded for daring to allow such things as medical savings accounts, or not having a high enough progressive income tax. (See, all you have to do is take away any incentive to exert yourself and earn more money than your neighbors, and ta-dah! EVERYONE'S health improves!) Of course, WHO couldn't possibly have an agenda.
Then there's the issue of life expectancy (different from lifespan). According to OECD, the US is 18 out of 30 democracies. But, they forgot to take out homicides and car accidents! They probably have some reason for why homicides are an indicator of poor health care (as opposed to being an indicator of the criminal-to-unarmed citizen ratio). If only we didn't have those pesty old homicides, we'd have a MUCH better health system, number one in fact!
Oh, here's another oldie (but not goodie): "People can go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills". Yes, there are people with integrity who DO end up in financial straits because of health bills, but Americans are the most generous people in the world, and we usually are pretty good at chipping in to help someone in a bind. But in a social-medicine country, that doesn't happen much...because you'd be DEAD instead of having bills to pay, having had to wait to see a specialist, then to get diagnostics, then to get treatment….
Every choice (whether to have private or socialized medicine) leads to other choices. So if what the media tells us is true, that “most people favor socialized medicine,” then what they're really saying is most people would rather be dead than bankrupt. Huh?
One final item;" High health insurance costs is what killed the US auto industry." Right, the UAW didn't have ANYthing to do with insisting on old outdated, costly factories that ensured more workers had jobs, (as well as non-competitiveness). Or the fact that UAW expected bloated wages for doing as little as possible, couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the problem. Nope, what we have to do is just give-give-give to anybody that asks for anything, and tax the people that are too stupid to quit their jobs.
Taking the UK or Canada as an example, what will we have to look forward to when socialized medicine is imposed on us?
1. A lot more foreign doctors. US citizens may demur at having to invest in rigorous training for maybe $13 to $18/hr (what Medicare currently pays), whereas foreigners may still be drawn to the US as being better than where they came from.
2. Long waits in ERs. Canada has some ERs where people wait up to FIVE DAYS. Long waits for treatment, like a three-year waiting list (in Canada) to get an appointment at a pain clinic. Long waits for diagnostics; two years or longer, as in both Britain and Canada.
3. IF private insurance is altogether banned, expect to see black-market medicine or “health care brokers” as they have in Canada, who help you get an appointment to see a doctor for a fee. Otherwise, as in Britain, private health insurance will be a growth area, as people see through the “Beveridge fallacy.” (Beveridge being the MP that pushed for Britain’s NHS.) Expect also, numbers of American going to other countries for medical treatment, as 33% of Canadians now do.
4. Fewer doctors overall; but the ones who are left will be more realistic about what they’ll get paid.
5. Initial relief for some businesses in terms of not having to buy insurance for employees, followed by punishing tax burdens, which will crush businesses.
6. Stagnant economy (not taking anything else in the economy into account!) due to businesses having to pay such high taxes they cannot re-invest in themselves. More businesses leaving the USA.
7. Higher prices (again, not taking anything else into consideration), and lower wages
for the jobs that are left, and nobody complaining about it as they’re just glad to be working.
8. As things get tougher, there will be fewer rummage sales due to people not being able to afford things they don’t really need, or being able to replace/throw out things. EBay would likely take a beating.
9. Secondhand stores will still be around, but the pickings won’t be anything like what you see currently in US Goodwills.
10. Expect more people to be permanently “on the dole”, as they say in Britain. More who’d rather take what nanny gives them than stand on their own two feet.
Overall, the US will be a lot poorer, if we get socialized medicine, and that without even considering the rest of the economic mess we have. And one day maybe NObody will be left working to pay for this mediocrity. Try as they might, the tax-and-spend crowd will be faced with one certainty: no society ever yet TAXED its way to prosperity.
emily matthews (Sun Sep 19 19:04:34 2010)
Well Emily, how about posting a link to where you copied that from? I would like to check it.
Dean Weichmann (Tue Sep 21 21:35:21 2010)
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