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As the health reform fight moves forward, the issues people are talking about change. While it once seemed like our biggest battle was over whether we are going to get a strong public health insurance option as part of reform, that question has now joined a host of others in the debate.
Predictably, these new arguments come with their fair share of myths that need to be pushed back on. So here we go…
Myth: Health reform will be paid for by "cutting" Medicare and Medicaid
This is the latest line trotted out by conservatives and picked up by the media, that we’re going to cut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for health reform. We’re not cutting Medicare or Medicaid, if by cut you mean doing anything that will lower people’s benefits. We’re finding savings in the program. And that’s not just spin.
Here’s an example: Right now, Medicaid pays hospitals a sum of money (which varies geographically) to help make up the losses they incur for treating patients that show up in the emergency room without insurance (who hospitals are legally required to treat). After health reform is passed, the number of uninsured in this country will diminish. These payments will therefore become redundant and can be phased out, yielding savings without cutting anyone’s benefits.
Myth: We’re just waiting for reconciliation on health care so we only need Democratic votes to pass it
This one isn’t true…yet.
Right now, the Senate is still operating under regular order, which means we will need 60 votes to end a filibuster and cut off debate over a health care reform bill. (Aside: Which Senators are going to be the ones to filibuster health care? People should start asking them that.) There is, however, an October 15th deadline. If the Senate is unable to move a health reform bill under regular order, they must move one under reconciliation by October 15th. So, right now, Harry Reid and other Senate leadership are giving Republicans every opportunity to come on board and vote for real health reform. If they don’t come on board, that’s what reconciliation is for.
Myth: Health reform will cost too much and put a burden on families
This is the most insidious of the right-wing lies. In reality, the cost of doing nothing on health reform will bankrupt families, and reforming health care will save the average American family thousands per year.
If we don’t reform our health care system and bring down skyrocketing costs, the average family will be paying almost $10,000 more per year for health care by 2016 than they do now. Our government will be bankrupt. And we’ll spend one in every five dollars in our entire economy on health care, up from the already astronomical one in seven that we spend now. The cost of doing nothing is simply unacceptable, and those against reform are willing to bankrupt families, government and our entire country to serve their obstructionism.
Not to mention that reforming health care will reduce costs for families. According to the Commonwealth Fund [pdf], health care reform that puts everyone in, gives people affordable options, and includes a strong public health insurance option (like that proposed by the House of Representatives) would save the average family $2,228 per year.
Plus, health reform will be fully financed. In the House, it will be paid for by a combination of Medicare and Medicaid savings, a public health insurance option that saves money, and a 1% tax on those that make over a quarter of a million dollars per year.
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Even though these myths are fairly prevalent in the debate right now, there’s a silver lining here. The Frank Luntz messaging that was supposed to be the GOP’s silver bullet – the health care reform is a Washington takeover leading to rationed care – is largely failing to take hold. And so, we’re forced to combat that latest set of conservative talking points. We’ll just have to do to these points what we did to Luntz – discredit and bring the truth.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
23 Comments
Exactly. At the core of all conservative arguments on healthcare (and climate change, and…) is the deliberately unspoken assumption that everything is fine right now and isn’t getting worse. If everything were fine and stable we wouldn’t be talking about this now.
The other Big Lie that is pervasive in the media is to conflate care and finance, always asking “are you happy with your healthcare?,” and never “are you happy with your insurance?”
The funny thing is, people are happy with their health care or insurance until they have to use it. When they get sick, that’s when they find out how bad it is. But most people in America are healthy, and so the poll numbers…
Thanks for the post, Jason.
What I don’t hear any on my tv saying is the plain and simple truth; We the People already pay more than 1 and a half times what giving ALL citizens health care actually costs. What we want congress to figure out is how make it go to health care and not insurance company profits.
Lies lies and more lies!! That is all the Republicans will everything they can to keep the health Care money flow to the Insurance Companies money flow back to help them fill their campaign coffers, they could care less if the whole middle clas goes backrupt or dies for lack of coverage!! How many more must DIE?? This is a War folks Us against the Corporatist and they are hoping their billions will rule the day!!
Well, wait a minute, Jason — are you agreeing with Redshift about the excessive conflation of health care and insurance? Because boosters of Obamacare are among the worst violators in this regard, loudly touting the virtues of “choice” without distinguishing between choice of provider (a genuine virtue) and choice of “plan” (which nobody really cares about; they want comprehensive, affordable, fairly assessed coverage without nefarious loopholes, regardless of source).
You’re absolutely right, also, that many people who are happy with their insurance are only happy as long as it goes untested. But this goes to the fundamental disingenuousness of Obama’s standard talk point that under health reform with a public option, you can keep what you “have” if you “like” it. As I’ve noted previously, insurance is not something you “have.” You cannot “like” the insurance you “have”; at best, you can “like” what your insurer has chosen, so far, to do (or what you think they’d do for you, without really knowing if they’d try to worm their way out it).
Under a public option in which a majority of Americans will still be insured by for-profit interests, people who stick with what they “have” until it screws them are plum out of luck. Tighter regulations and, maybe, competitive “honesty-maintenance” from a public plan may diminish, but won’t eliminate, that screwing.
I say this not out of advocacy against Obamacare but in preparation for the struggle beyond Obamacare to achieve what the nation really needs.
Two other small, and one not-so-small, things: The penultimate sentence in your Medicare/Medicaid section is missing a word at the end: “…the number of uninsured in this country will [diminish?].” Also “therefor” needs an “e.”
The not-so-small thing: You need to include a big disclosure statement on cross-posts from the HCAN blog that are written in your paid capacity as an HCAN spokesperson. It’s not enough just to cite the “Now!” blog. You’ve always been good about this in your DKos and Oxdown posts, writing something to the effect of “I’m proud to work for HCAN.” You need to maintain at least that much transparency as a Seminal front-pager.
Hear! Hear!
My husband’s business pays around $900 a month for a family of four to have insurance and they have a $2,000 deductible on top of it. Before the insurance company pays, the business has paid just under $11,000 and the family $2,000. We have no choice as this is my husband’s brother’s family and a nephew has had a stent draining excess fluid from his brain since right after birth and he is 19 now. I can only, but guess how much the insurance companies want him as a customer.
A public option, preferably single payer, would help our business be more competitive. We’re all for it!
Also, didn’t I read that 19% of business health care goes bye-bye in the next few years if nothing changes?
The funny thing is, people are happy with their health care or insurance until they have to use it. When they get sick, that’s when they find out how bad it is. But most people in America are healthy, and so the poll numbers…
DING!
I can’t express how true this is. One of our children requires healthcare quite frequently. We have found over and over that our insurance company is always looking for new and better ways to screw over our child and his doctor.
People who don’t have cause to use their health insurance have no idea how terrible it really is. You have people sitting in an office (who are not doctors) making decisions that over rule doctor opinion.
Thanks for the post Jason!
I think the idea behind the Obama plan is to do both: reform health care and insurance. Certainly, there are ideas about payment reform and efficiency of care that are being addressed in health reform plans. They’re crucial. Fee-for-service is a huge driver of health care costs, and comparative effectiveness research is needed to ensure clinical decisions are made based on sound science. We need more providers in rural areas. We need to pay primary care docs more and specialists less.
Whether they get this care through pubic or private plans doesn’t really matter, they’ll get the benefits of better care either way. And if they tire of getting screwed by the private industry, they’ll be able to choose not to be anymore.
As for disclosure, I’d rather do that on a biography page, as I used to do at the old Seminal. I’ll try and figure out how to make that happen, it is indeed important.
(and thanks for catching typos, going to fix now…)
There is one simple meme in the House plan, three little words that the American people will latch onto, despite the best efforts of the Versailles Media Whores to prevent it from getting through the filter:
Tax
The
Rich
As long as stories proliferate about the new Goldman bonuses and the new AIG bonuses and the new Citicorp salaries, and how Team Obama is unable to rein in the worst compensation excesses, the American people will be willing to listen to Democratic ideas that involve this simple meme:
Tax
The
Rich
A strong public health insurance option remains a blackbox. Obama hasn’t defined it. Congress can’t even decide if it wants a public option at all. Yet progressives are being asked to support it without knowing what it is, and to support it rather than single payer universal healthcare which is a known and has variations functioning in most industrialized countries.
The politics are strongly negative for a public option. First, that no one will define it. Second, because even among so called progressive legislators, only a small minority of them consider the lack of a public option a dealbreaker.
A friend of mine, a professional in government service with good insurance, recently suffered a major health crisis that required a stay in the hospital and two surgeries. After his insurance paid off, he found himself with a bill for over $25,000. He had a coinsurance provison that he didn’t even know about. He had to sell his late-model car at short notice.
For-profit insurance is full of gotchas like this. Add the downright dishonest tactics used for evading claims, evading calls, and delaying payments and–yeah–people are a LOT less satisfied when they try to use the coverage that they have paid for.
I say “paid for,” because, contrary to rightwing claims, our employers do not pay for our care. We do–by accepting lower wages than we would otherwise require and by holding jobs for continuity of benefits even when we could do better elsewhere.
I’m not so sure nobody is defining it. HCAN has. MoveOn and others are following that. And Jane here at FDL has a very concrete definition.
Now, whether Members of Congress agree with that definition is something else entirely, and worth asking.
“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty which are embodied in one maxim: the fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate” Bertrand Russell.
the spineless demos and the self righteous and big business repubs are not about to pass a universal health care plan
capitalism in america has created a greedy and lack of compassion country
and we call ourselves a christian country: go figure
christianity died on the cross
america is about materialism and wealth generation that is the role of capitalism to create a society of materialists
only when over 50% of the people in america have problems with their health insurance will we see a change
big money in health care, drugs, and insurance and too many lobbyists for wash to ignore
with communism man exploits man with capitalism it is the other way around
thanks, Teddy, for your concise three-word response to people who wail we can’t “afford” health care reform.
And put me on the list as someone who “has” insurance that, because of co-pays and deductibles, is costing me PLENTY out of pocket for routine stuff that used to be paid 100%.
I’m always bemused to hear Obama & Friends assuring us we can keep our insurance if we “want” to. WANT to!? Give me a good comprehensive public plan, even if it costs me more, and I’ll drop my predatory, blood-sucking insurance company like a hot brick (BTW, it’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which used to have a sterling reputation; but then again, it also used to be nonprofit).
Incidentally, if you missed Moyers this week, with the former CIGNA communications guy, RUN do not walk to Moyers’ website, and watch it. After seeing that program, it’s crystal clear to me that REAL health care thru for-profit insurance companies is totally impossible.
The public wants to have that option. Last I read it was 76%.
The public option is a government insurance plan (or plans) which offer coverage the same way a private insurance plan is supposed to. It is administered by an entity set up to do only that and in a non-political way. It will take in premiums and pay out of that. It is not-for-profit and won’t haggle with it’s customers over what is or is not covered in the way private firms do. It won’t consider pre-existing conditions and it won’t rescind policies when you get sick.
The concept is important to have debated and decided on. The details are important too.
Vague or ‘black box’? No.
Saying that the public plan is a vague blackbox won’t make single-payer any more likely to happen.
Of course the full agenda of health care reform, whatever form it takes, involves reform of both the financing and provision of health care. That’s obvious and trite and ignores the point I was making regarding Obama’s (and HCAN’s) deceptive messaging regarding “choice.” As for this…
…that’s spectacularly naive. The public option, with an exchange and mandates, will not alter the insurance companies’ fiduciary responsibility to attempt to withhold benefits. Jacob Hacker recently acknowledged that the Healthcare for America plan (much less whatever actually gets legislated) will not prevent medical bankruptcies and impoverishment. Only a profit-purged system, off the table on a national basis for now, can achieve that.
As for this…
…under the Senate HELP draft, and probably under whatever legislation finally passes, eligibility for the public plan will be severely restricted. Moreover, your own organization, HCAN, failed to include “available to all who want it” in your own criteria for a robust public option. That’s one of the distinctions between your robustness criteria and those published by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
All of which brings me to your last point regarding disclosure. This is, of course, the call of the people who own and run the FDL franchise, but in my view, a note in your bio is not nearly sufficient. I’m very concerned that you should feel entitled to drift seamlessly between your own personal posts and those that you were paid to write and disseminate by an advocacy group without a clear disclaimer on each post in the latter category.
Pretending that the public option is a true solution will not make single payer any less necessary.
The issue of a public option and its’ effects on employers has been studiously avoided by the press, legislators and business groups. The cost of insuring employees is reflected in every aspect of our economy. Ruinous premiums hurt competition in the market place for both goods and skilled employees, the added costs affect the price of everything, valued employees cannot be compensated for true worth because of insurance cost, state and local employers see a larger and larger percentage of taxpayer money being used for fewer and fewer employees.
Employers are all over the place in regards to a public option. Many desperately want it because they are literally going broke. Others are ambivalent but are interested the possible transfer of responsibility (and cost)for coverage from them to society as a whole, and others are violently opposed for the usual nefarious reasons (keep low wages, health care and economic extortion of the uninsurables, large employers keeping smaller ones noncomptetive). I have even heard of pressure from the scummy Chamber of Commerce trying to keep all employers in line to protect those who profit or have an economic advantage with the current system. The public option will benefit employers, employees and society as a whole. A public option will drive out non competitive insurers which is probably all of them.
I think this is the point, really. If for-profit health care fails to compete and give folks what they want, people will move away from it, and it will die out. I wouldn’t be unhappy with that result. If for-profit health care does get its act together, that works too. Either way, the result is people have health care that actually works for them.
As for who’s in and who’s out, the House bill (right now draft, soon to be bill) is more in line with our principles than HELP, and that’s where our support is swinging.
And as for disclosure, as I said, I’m working with site admins to get a good bio page up, but for now, I’ll be adding the disclosure line. I agree that it’s important.
If you really think Baucus, Dodd, and Schumer — much less Conrad, Nelson, and Lieberman — or for that matter, Obama, Emanuel, and Sibelius, will allow the public option to have anything near the capacity to compete private insurers into oblivion, I have a spanking-new 8-track cassette deck I’d like to sell you.
in the real world the insurance companies compete by denying care, by patient population selection (to exclude the sick, and therefor expensive customers) and similar.
without a regulation scheme to prevent this type of market competition, i can not see how your public option scheme will actually work. on the other hand, i can see how individual mandates to purchase insurance will funnel hundreds of billions of dollars more to private insurance companies.