We Keep Focusing On The Wrong Questions and Answers

We are  concentrating all our efforts on who should pay for the rising health care costs instead of asking, “Why are we paying so much?” Right now, Congressman Paul Ryan is rewriting a bill to tinker with raising the eligibility age for Medicare but there is no legislator on either side working on lowering the rising cost of health care. Unemployment is at 8% yet;no committee is working on that problem because all the emphasis is long-term debt instead of where it should be;short term growth job and growth projects..

I’ve read the 24,105 word article written by Steve Brill(Bitter Pill ..Time Magazine) about four times because it’s unbelievable how we just accept that we have to pay more on health care than the next ten highest spending countries combined. Health care in the United States is a seller's market, and we are buyers with very little knowledge of how the system works and we don’t usually have the ability to negotiate. Little Johnny wakes up in the middle of the night crying out with pain, so we take him to the nearest ER and plop down our insurance card, and we won’t realize the cost until we get the bill in the mail. We have no idea if we could have saved some money by comparing the costs of another ER just down the road because that’s not practical. The Hospital takes full advantage of those who do not ask for detail billing and continues their practice of over billing; in fact,  overpayments  are 25% of our bloated health care spending.

Steve Brill has made numerous television appearances saying that Medicare because by law can pay hospitals only the approximate cost of care is the sole program that bends the cost curve. On that basis, he believes people should go on Medicare at a younger age if we are interested in reducing costs but that message is falling on deaf ears, for obvious reasons. He advocates allowing Medicare to competitively price and assess drugs because it would save us billions. Instead of of means testing Medicare recipients, the author thinks wealth individuals should pay a higher co-pays. I guess the idea is not to let Medicare taking the identity of a welfare program.

Health care is the only area where advanced technology has made it more expensive. It encourages more procedures and treatment by making them easier and more convenient. There is also that legal incentive because a doctor can’t be sued for doing too much. Since the same tests are given for a heart attack victim as one for symptoms of a one; new technology in the future may rectify that.

The author hits the non profits pretty hard because they don’t have to pay income taxes or shareholders,  so they funnel all the profits to expansion and CEO pay. A CEO of Sloan-Kettering justified the higher rates because they applied them to [wealthy] uninsured persons from overseas, which allows them to serve the poor. The chargemaster prices are so high (even with discounts and Medicare) that it has allowed them, to become high profile businesses using the charity distinction (1% of its funding) to have the best of both worlds.

Health care costs are over $2 trillion a year, and it will continue to rise unless more hospitals and doctors are aware of their costs. The Cleveland Clinic deconstructed the price of their top three procedures, so they could accurately measure their costs. They tagged all the instruments,equipment,medicines,and even timed the patients stay in post-anesthesia care. They then tagged and labeled their supply cabinets with their costs. They also stressed message of “ Without compromising quality ,consider cost-effective alternatives.”Unfortunately, many hospitals and doctors don’t know or have to know the true costs of their service because they can easily pass them off to their customers.

I hope I never get the displeasure, but if I ever get hospitalized, I will ask for detail billing now that I know what to look for. I will check on the level of room I am being charged for since hospitals charge their ER services by level, depending on the amount of equipment and supplies needed. Level one requiring the fewest.The hospital and doctor's level should be the same. I will question charges for additional reading of tests or scans unless it’s part of a second opinion or consultation. I will also make sure I was not charged for a canceled test due to high blood pressure or elevated blood sugar levels.

The article was packed with endless useful information, and I know that I did not do it any justice in the confines of this blog. I left –out so much because it was repetitive injustices that we continue to hear but don’t do anything to stop.  It reminds of Wall Street surpassing historic highs this week after shaking down America to the tune of $8 trillion, but the emphasis for some is on reducing welfare. The article also took me back to the old days of investigative journalism.

I left out the unlawful and hideous practices of the health insurance companies  and many new proposals that might work if given a chance but there's always manana.

I had to bite my tongue

My wife and I had a pleasant journey to Corpus Christi this morning, and it's always a relief to hear the GPS lady say, “you have arrived at your destination." We anticipated some rain but we just got scattered showers on the way up there.

Our company decided to turn over their retiree healthcare plan to a company called Extended Help who will help us with the transition. They even set up a free seminar with the company. I admit that I had a little anxiety because change is hardly ever easy.

As we entered the Holiday Inn hallway, I noticed an old friend  and a couple of other people with him as he was pointing at me and laughing. In the five or six seconds, it took to approach him; lot of things were going through my mind," did I have egg McMuffin on my chin or was my fly open?" It was a relief to hear him say," there is one of those Obama voters who is responsible for us being here." As we were going to our seats my wife asked me “what’s this plan have to do with Obamacare?" I just shrugged my shoulders, sat down and started looking around the room at faces that I recognized but couldn't place a name to. I estimated the crowd to be about 150 to 200 people, but some were from Corpus Christi.

When the speaker said “good morning" you could have heard a pin drop because everyone in the room was anxious to hear every word she said because this was an introduction to a very important decision, we had to make. We all wanted to get all the information we could, before we signed up with the new plan.

As it turns out, we had nothing to worry about because it's a simple choice between a Medical Advantage plan and a MediGap plan. The plans may be less expensive than what I'm on now,  but I will be required to fill more new paperwork. That’s OK because  this company is getting paid by our company to take me through the most economical steps.  She advised us to use a land line or a freshly charged cell  when it came time for the processing because the complete interview would  take one hour or more.

We did learn that the government would not let us be denied for pre-existing conditions, and that the plan will have no lifetime caps... The instructor told us that these plans had nothing to do with Obamacare, which drew a lot of laughs from the skeptics. At the beginning of the seminar, we were handed cards where we could submit our question for the instructor. Three of the seven cards that were submitted asked if this plan had anything to do with Obamacare. On our way out, another old buddy of mind wished us a safe trip and then said, “I don't believe for a minute that this has nothing to do with Obamacare." And that's just it," you can lead a horse to water, even stick his nose in it, but you can't make him drink."

On our way back and as we were approaching I-37N, we could see that it was going to rain, but we never anticipated that we would be driving through a big downpour. For the next 15 miles or so, the cars around us, we're not traveling more than 45 miles an hour. Many cars were parked on the emergency lanes, and I thought of that but looking for a place to exit was more dangerous than remaining in the middle lane and plowing ahead.

We had already forgotten our little excitement until we got into downtown Refugio, when out of nowhere we heard the loudest siren ever. I didn't know what it was, I assumed it was a tornado warning, and I didn't know what actions I was supposed to take, so I just kept driving forward. I wasn't alone, because people were just milling around filling their cars, going into restaurants, and doing their business as if the siren never went off. Refugio needs to go digital.

Up until three years  ago,I didn't think we had that many skeptics or naive people. I used to laugh at the preposterous tales and say to myself “no one will believe that." Oh yes, they will!

Pay Attention Seniors

It’s hard being number two

I know that I said that no one should be paying attention to the 30 second political ads, but I didn't factor in the play they would get in the media. Play close attention to the Paul Ryan interview where he stumbles and seems like he's looking for the exit gate. I've got to give credit to Brit Hume for putting aside his partisan views and instead using his journalistic skills in pinning down Paul Ryan. The reason Paul Ryan had the “the deer in the headlights look" is twofold, the first being, he was trying to say the right words that would not get him in trouble with his boss because it's no longer his plan. The second reason is that he is accusing President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare to fund Obamacare. Brit Hume did his homework; he knows that the Ryan budget calls for the same $716 billion Medicare cuts, but his plan would short-change the beneficiaries; where is the president's cuts would short circuit the providers. The Romney/Ryan will include a repeal of the current healthcare plan. The Ryan plan did not have a provision to close the doughnut hole. The Ryan plan does not guarantee Medicare nor could it have anything that was provided in the affordable Health Care Act because the Republicans want to repeal it.

The GOP can no longer use the word "Mediscare" in describing their opponents because they are using the same tactic on the president.

The president did take $716 billion out of Medicare in over 10 years; to cut down the rate of growth, eliminate subsidizing the Medical Advantage program and remove wasteful expenditures. The president's action did not take a dime out of the Medicare recipient's pockets, in fact, fact some of that money went to preventive care for seniors, closing the doughnut hole in prescription-drug purchases because seniors are not excluded from the Affordable Health Care Act. The Republican legislators cannot say that Obama does not want to talk about reforming Medicare and say he took $716 billion out of Medicare at the same time without sounding hypocritical. You can't have it both ways.

I've got to give it to the Republicans because they are great campaigners. Several Republican legislators are using their moms in their ads saying," Sonny boy wouldn't take away Medicare from his mother." Oh' if she only knew. Every since its inception, Republicans have been trying to wither down Medicare enough for its eventual demise. Newt Gingrich famously said, "he would like to see Medicare “wither on the vine” and has supported plans to privatize Medicare.

I don't know of a single republican, and you can't walk ten feet in Victoria without running into one, who wants to privatize or get rid of Medicare. They have seen their parents, and grandparents praise the program and now they, themselves understand the meaning of guaranteed health care when you most need it. I would bet my last dollar that seniors would make the sacrifice to keep the guarantee of Medicare even if it meant paying co pays or paying a little more, but we must keep in mind that most of these people are on a fixed income.

The Ryan plan gradually raises the Medicare eligibility age to 67. That doesn't seem like a big deal since we are living longer, and it would save a lot of money. I don't normally use personal stories, but I don't think my personal example is out of the norm. When I retired, my blood pressure, cholesterol, and stress factors came down considerably, and I knew that in eight years I would be eligible for Medicare. I became an insulin-dependent type 2 diabetic at age 62. I have it under control, but I shudder to think of what would have happened if I didn't have health insurance. I can't imagine retiring at age 67 before starting a wellness program that Medicare provides. I still have Aetna, but I haven't used it for the two years other than Medco for my drugs, since I've been on Medicare because I haven't met the $2000 deductible. To make a long story short, our legislators have a great health care plan, but they don't have any idea what affect their policies will make on the average Joe. It's not always about what the Congressional Budget Office calculates.

I hope that we get back to discussing the issues because I caught a glimpse this morning of why people hate politics. This morning the host of "Morning Joe" Joe Scarborough was having a fit over a Democratic Super PAC ad accusing Mitt Romney of being responsible for a worker's wife dying of cancer just because Bain Capital shut down the plant, leaving the workers without health care. It is a fictitious ad because the wife had her own insurance, and she died six years after the plant closing. He was also angry about the words Joe Biden used yesterday at a campaign stump when he said, “Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they’re proposing. [Romney] said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street,” Biden said a rally in Danville, Va. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” Both could be seen as crossing the line but that line was blurred a long time ago.

It's going to be a long 85 days but I would bet my life savings that if injected with sodium pentothal(truth serum) most republicans wishes that Romney and Ryan would have left Medicare out of the discussion for now because repealing Obamacare without a plan to take it's place and messing with Medicare is a scary political platform.

If you were born after 1958..Play close attention

The 2012 presidential election will be the most important one in our lifetime because voters will get to vote on the direction of the country. It’s possible that the presidential candidates will nominate at least one Supreme Court judge in the next four years but most importantly the eventual winner will decide the direction our country will  take in reforming Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending.

Mitt Romney made an outstanding choice, but it was one he had to take since he was boxed in. The Romney campaign saw that the numbers were definitely in favor of the president. Mitt Romney has changed the topic from being about his tax returns, now  that he's picked a person who will share the criticism from  the Democrats. The choice pleases the conservative base and the opposition party. Congressman Ryan is a decent well -liked family man who knows his supply-side economics'. Paul Ryan is supposed to be a deficit hawk, but he voted for the two Bush tax cuts, the two wars, a prescription-drug plan that was not paid for and the Bush bailout of Wall Street, and the GM bailout, President Bush started. Saturday, Paul Ryan admitted that President Obama was left with a bad hand but said that he left the country in worse shape; which is impossible since the Obama's administration inherited losing 750,000 jobs a month? He went onto say that the president controlled both houses and he got everything he wanted, which was not true. He left out the part where the Senate used parliamentary tricks and the filibuster to deny the president. The president got what he could barely pass because the GOP fought him on every proposal. That's history; we will now have discussions on the serious matters.

It's important to know that Paul Ryan's first budget included a voucher(he called it premium support) to replace Medicare as we know it, but he got a lot of flak from his fellow Republicans, so he changed it and got one democratic senator to co-sponsor Ryan II, which included an option to opt out.The Ryan II bill passed the house but failed in the Senate. Last night, Mitt Romney slammed the president saying he stole $700 billion from Medicare to finance Obama Care. Right next to Romney sat Paul Ryan whose budget does the same thing but Ryan's cuts will go to the beneficiaries, and Obama's cuts are on the providers. The president's action saved Medicare an additional eight years, which is not enough, but it's a start. The Republicans know after many years of losing the Medicare fight that this popular program is considered a Holy Grail. The first thing that they will say, " if you are currently on Medicare your benefits will remain the same" that's not exactly true because prescriptions drugs will be higher if the Republicans repeal, the Affordable Care Act and the doughnut hole goes unfilled. Those people younger than 54 will have to consider that but probably won't. The younger folks will also have to entertain the idea of buying health insurance at age 65 with a voucher capped at a certain percentage of GDP. It's basically putting the extra cost on the beneficiary instead of the federal government. Paul Ryan's budget will issue block grants to the states for Medicaid. I can see rest homes being a thing of the past and about 17 million poor people without any form of health insurance. Those younger than 54 better take out a membership in a health club,stay active, cut back on your sugar intake and live a health lifestyle or you will have a rude awaking when you turn 65. A large savings account won't hurt because I don't think the private insurance companies will be cheap.

I'm reading an interesting book about how progressives are letting the conservatives identify the issues and the answers. Progressive should be arguing against the upward redistribution of wealth. We could solve the healthcare issue, but the ideas wouldn't pass Congress because it would hurt the health professionals, pharmaceuticals, and hospitals. I'll start with a free market cost analysis. For example, a heart valve replacement costs $160,000 in the U.S. and only $9000 in India and a knee replacement costs $40,000 in our country and only $9000 in India. Using those numbers ,the government could send their Medicare, Medicaid and VA patients to Canada, India, and Singapore and save some big bucks. The savings would offset future premium costs for those patients and dramatically bring down the cost of healthcare. Many would not want to go overseas but there is a way and the free market would force our health care providers to compete. The free market principals' conservatives’ use are always aimed at the people at the bottom. The lower wages and benefits cuts they seek ,consistently come from those who can least afford it. To emphasize a point, the Obama Administration made deals with the pharmaceutical companies, and the American Medical Association and other special-interest groups that defeated the Clinton initiative in 1992. The Obama Administration didn't figure that the healthcare lobbyist would play both sides of the fence, so the Affordable Health Care Act was demonized anyway. The main point is that we outsource jobs that eventually hurt the non-professional, but we would never think about outsourcing the professional workforce. The middle –class are never considered in our trade talks.

The Republicans are going to try to make this election about government vs. the free market, but they will use their interpretation of the free market. In all of Ryan speeches so far, he has ended it by saying, “you built that business" and Mitt Romney emphasizes that by saying, " yes the school bus driver took you to school, but he can't take credit for your good grades." I'm paraphrasing, but it's enough to give you a good picture on how they will run. It's a top-down strategy where government is a wedge issue.

I see where the Romney people are coming out of the woodwork since the announcement of Paul Ryan as the vice president pick. It wasn't lost on the locals because they too are starting to write letters praising Romney after months of silence and obvious disappointment in their GOP's nominee.

There is no doubt that Medicare,Social Security, and Medicaid need some serious reform but so does defense spending. We mustn’t make all the cuts on the social programs without touching defense and asking the wealthy to pay more. I think it’s stupid  and selfish of us to take a 20% tax cut rate (including the wealthy) on the backs of the poor,handicapped,students and the elderly.

The Festive Season

I'm going to stick with my self- imposed pattern of not posting controversial comments or blogs during the holidays. I'll probably use this time to catch up on my reading and doing other things to keep myself occupied during the festive season. It's going to take some will power because I'm itching to write a blog about last night's interesting debate.

As most of you know my only living sister lost her son recently, so my thoughts are with her and her family. Thoughts keep going through my mind on how best to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving without dredging up old wounds. I'm sure they will be sad, so there's probably not an appropriate time to make that call. Perhaps I should wait for her to call me but will that be selfish of me? This is just another one of life's problems where the answer is not in a handbook.

I don't know where the respect for the holidays became a natural part of my life. Perhaps it was that lecture I used to get from my parents about being nice to my irritating cousins. I remember the holidays being some of the best days to work because there was the double time and 1/2 pay, the supervisors and the annoying paper pushers were off, and we always had a table full of goodies to munch on. We also had limited duties but working with happy coworkers was the icing on the cake. When I built up enough seniority, I didn't see much of that because I would save my vacation and take off the whole month of December and the first week of January.

Perhaps I'm just getting older, and I want the world to slow down but it seems to me that this year went by extra fast. I know part of that is because I'm on Medicare, so my doctor thinks that I need to get tested for this and that, so he can eliminate some ailments that I don't have, but the symptoms may be similar to something else. There seems to be a machine or a specialist for all those tests. I know if I were paying cash, my doctor would have used his first assumption. It's not his fault because, if I was ever misdiagnosed, the board would've asked for the reasons I was not tested for this and that. It's a vicious circle, of which we don't have a clear answer for.

Happy Thanksgiving All

America loves socialism

Americans don't want an economic system where the federal government redistributes wealth equally amongst its people. I will also argue that Americans are freedom loving people who rather not depend on government for their success or failures. However, I do believe 48 million Americans love their single- payer government run Medicare. I don't believe people were all that upset when president Obama took temporary control of Chrysler and GM Motors. It was a successful temporal measure, intended to save over one million jobs. It would have been Un-American to just let the automotive industry die although it might have set a bad precedent. It was a gamble that paid off. They key word is temporary.

After six years of reading what some posters have said about every government action under the sun; I'm convinced that they have no idea of what the word  socialism means. It's interesting that the highly conservative 23rd district of New York elected a democrat just because the republican candidate supported the controversial Medicare plan of Congressman Paul Ryan. It's also surprising that the republicans are going to continue supporting the Ryan plan, but they will repackage the message. Then again, all but four GOP representatives voted for the Ryan plan, so they might as well try to make lemonade out of some bad lemons they were handed. Paul Ryan is trying to make an argument that his plan was not about a voucher system but more of a “premium support" plan. Mr. Ryan said his plan would allow Medicare recipients who are younger than 55 years old, to choose among various private insurance companies for their coverage and the government would help with their premiums. That's where republicans don't get it; insurance companies will not willingly insure the elderly but when they do, it will be very expensive.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said if the democrats don't do anything about Medicare; it would go bankrupt. I don't believe anyone is arguing Mr. Rubio's main point but as Nancy Pelosi said" democrats do have a plan; it's called Medicare." It's no question that Medicare needs additional funds and those funds can be obtained by eliminating the subsidies for the oil companies, raising taxes on the top 2%, and cutting defense spending. The democrats have already made Medicare cuts by eliminating the Medicare Advantage program but more could be done like adding $20 co- pays, means testing, and an increase in the 1.45% Medicare payroll tax. When the republicans throw down the gauntlet of “no tax increases" they're just as much of fault as their opposition, of sticking to ideology instead of compromising for the greater good.

I have to agree with the liberal pundits; the republicans have fumbled at their own 2 yard line, how are the democrats going to mess this up? The liberal left is already saying that former president Bill Clinton should just shut up because he said that the democrats need to come up with a plan for saving Medicare and not just think the mistakes of the GOP will be enough...... Liberal talk show host, Ed Schultz, has been suspended from MSNBC for calling Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut" and "talk slut" on his syndicated show Tuesday. Ed Schultz should know better because liberals punish bad behavior, so they will never master the art of the "politics of personal destruction" like Limbaugh and Ingraham obviously have. In fact, Laura Ingraham will use the punishment Schultz received as a weapon of convenience. She will say something like “Oh, I don't know who he is" or "his comments were so incendiary, even for a left-wing network like MSNBC."

The GOP can’t catch a break because this afternoon,  a Wisconsin judge struck down the state's controversial anti-collective bargaining law.The senate may win on Senator Rand Paul’s amendment to the Patriot Act.Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) will  demand that the chamber vote on an amendment that would restrict national security officials from examining gun dealer records in their efforts to track potential terrorists….That makes no sense at all. Paul voted,YES, to the Patriot Act but he wants to exempt gun dealers from compliance. I guess if you factor in the gun lobbyist’s future campaign contributions;it makes a great deal of sense.

Finally when you thought that this current group of house members couldn’t stoop lower,they go and do this:

While much of Joplin, Mo., is still under rubble from a devastating tornado, conservatives in Congress are starting to argue for a tougher approach to disaster aid, demanding that any funding be offset by cutting federal money elsewhere.

Disasters will no longer be considered “emergencies” if conservatives win this battle to redefine the way Congress funds aid packages for states and cities stricken by natural and man-made catastrophes.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55776.html#ixzz1NUTZR7wB

Mind you the tax cut for the top 2% is still in tack.