The knock on Barack Obama from the start was his unwillingness to go head to head--"mix it up a little," as Maureen Dowd urged him during the campaign. Now, after a Nobel Peace prize, he suddenly seems to be brawling with everybody, from the health insurance industry down to Fox News.
“They’re filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads," he said this weekend in counterattacking the insurers. "They’re flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they’re funding studies designed to mislead the American people.
“It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, 'Take one of these, and call us in a decade.'"
As the President takes off the gloves on health reform, his surrogates fan out to confront Rupert Murdoch's cable minions. On ABC yesterday, David Axelrod defended Communications Director Anita Dunn's offensive against Fox News.
"I understand that their programming is geared toward making money. The only argument Anita was making is that they’re not really a news station...it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming. It’s really not news--it’s pushing a point of view."
Axelrod was backing up Dunn's manifesto in a New York Times interview: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
A Times analysis sniffs that a White House web site called Reality Check with a "truth-o-meter" to correct Glenn Beck lies "sounds a bit like the blog of some unemployed guy living in his parents’ basement, not an official communiqué from Pennsylvania Avenue."
The new combative Obama may not be to everyone's liking, but it would be well to remember how the President-to-be reacted to Dowd's prodding. “When I get into a tussle,” he said, “I want it to be over something real, not something manufactured."
His tussles these days are as real as it gets.
Showing posts with label health insurers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health insurers. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Life-and-Death Games
The health-care finals start in Washington today with the Obama home team hosting the all-stars who have made the American medical system one of the most expensive and least effective in the world.
The name of the game is cooperation as insurers, drug makers, hospitals et al come to the White House reportedly to announce "a voluntary plan to hold costs down, which health care industry officials involved in the effort say could save a family of four $2,500 a year in the fifth year, and a total of $2 trillion for the nation over 10 years. But there is no way of ensuring that the providers keep their promises, beyond publicizing their performance."
As a basketball fan, the President should recognize a fakeout when he sees one but, just in case, Paul Krugman has a head's up for him:
"What’s presumably going on here is that key interest groups have realized that health care reform is going to happen no matter what they do, and that aligning themselves with the Party of No will just deny them a seat at the table. (Republicans, after all, still denounce research into which medical procedures are effective and which are not as a dastardly plot to deprive Americans of their freedom to choose.)"
Behind all the trash talk this week will be the crucial contest over whether Congress will enact health-care reform that includes a government-sponsored option (Medicare-for-all) to give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without that, they're just playing the same old games.
The name of the game is cooperation as insurers, drug makers, hospitals et al come to the White House reportedly to announce "a voluntary plan to hold costs down, which health care industry officials involved in the effort say could save a family of four $2,500 a year in the fifth year, and a total of $2 trillion for the nation over 10 years. But there is no way of ensuring that the providers keep their promises, beyond publicizing their performance."
As a basketball fan, the President should recognize a fakeout when he sees one but, just in case, Paul Krugman has a head's up for him:
"What’s presumably going on here is that key interest groups have realized that health care reform is going to happen no matter what they do, and that aligning themselves with the Party of No will just deny them a seat at the table. (Republicans, after all, still denounce research into which medical procedures are effective and which are not as a dastardly plot to deprive Americans of their freedom to choose.)"
Behind all the trash talk this week will be the crucial contest over whether Congress will enact health-care reform that includes a government-sponsored option (Medicare-for-all) to give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without that, they're just playing the same old games.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Unbundling Health-Care Derivatives
With a goal of passing legislation by June, Congress is getting serious about health care reform, and advocates of change are more nervous about their allies than about lobbyists defending the current failed system.
"More than 70 House Democrats," the Washington Post reports, "recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan."
Their action was prompted by suggestions that the Obama Administration may be willing to compromise on that aspect of providing universal coverage.
The health-care crisis, like the home-mortgage meltdown, has no simple solution but there are similarities in their origins--the greedy intervention of third parties to profit from what used to be transactions between buyers and sellers.
Like the derivatives that wrecked the housing market, profit-seeking insurers have created a convoluted system that siphons off one out of every three health-care dollars for themselves, giving Americans less care for more money than any place else in the developed world.
In reform legislation, it's crucial to include what has been called a Medicare-for-All option that would give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without such a choice, health-care "reform" could turn out to be like Wall Street bailouts that shovel money to Citibank, Bank of America and AIG and leave all the decisions about spending it to their discretion.
"More than 70 House Democrats," the Washington Post reports, "recently warned party leaders that they will not support a broad health reform bill that does not offer consumers a government-sponsored policy, and two unions withdrew from a high-profile health coalition because it would not endorse a public plan."
Their action was prompted by suggestions that the Obama Administration may be willing to compromise on that aspect of providing universal coverage.
The health-care crisis, like the home-mortgage meltdown, has no simple solution but there are similarities in their origins--the greedy intervention of third parties to profit from what used to be transactions between buyers and sellers.
Like the derivatives that wrecked the housing market, profit-seeking insurers have created a convoluted system that siphons off one out of every three health-care dollars for themselves, giving Americans less care for more money than any place else in the developed world.
In reform legislation, it's crucial to include what has been called a Medicare-for-All option that would give consumers a chance to buy care directly and pressure private insurers to improve what they offer.
Without such a choice, health-care "reform" could turn out to be like Wall Street bailouts that shovel money to Citibank, Bank of America and AIG and leave all the decisions about spending it to their discretion.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Fighting Words From the White House
The President's Saturday morning address is far from sweetness and light today, featuring a challenge to health insurers, banks, oil companies and their lobbyists, among others, to put up or shut up.
" I realize," he says, "that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.
"I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.
"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
"So am I."
As should we all be.
" I realize," he says, "that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington.
"I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries.
"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
"So am I."
As should we all be.
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