Nothing from nothing leaves healthcare reform? listed in Health Care
The great pianist and songwriter Billy Prestononce sang, "nothing from nothing leaves nothing." Although as 15 to 16 months, I've seen the promise of health care reform start with single-payer then morph into some sort of public option which, if it is robust should be able to contain health-care costs. This is kind of what they House passed. The Senate, on the other hand, is one confusing mess. Senator Max Baucus was given the keys to the city. I'm not sure what he came up with. As chairman of the finance committee, he was in charge of coming up with a health care bill that was attractive to at least a couple of Republicans. Olympia Snowe and others were courted with sweeteners which seem to eat away at the core of health care reform. Senator Kent Conrad decided that he would introduce his own health-care legislation which was some sort of co-op. Although he sold this idea on the Sunday talk shows and pushed it hard for 6-8 weeks, thankfully (hopefully), it is died a quick death.
The public option is been tossed around like a medicine ball. In Junior high school we were asked to throw a medicine ball in order to build up muscle strength and coordination. Every other throw, the ball was dropped, kicked and then picked up and thrown again. This is exactly what has happened with the public option. What was once a robust counterweight to private health insurance has turned into something that states can opt in or opt out depending upon the whims of their legislature. Oh, and it seems that opposing healthcare is a great way to get on TV and increase your image/status like Bart Stupak.
I have stated both on my radio show and on this blog that health-care reform must include something that is cost-effective, portable and increases access to healthcare. Currently, we are looking at a health-care bill that seems to do none of this. Many progressives have decided that they cannot support this bill. They want something else done. I understand the sentiment. I find this whole process extremely frustrating. Democrats seem to be completely unable to stick to their principles and stand up for the middle class. It seems like the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats know what is right but can't do it. Republicans have no idea what is right and won't do it. BTW, President Barack Obama is leader come lately. Look I love this man but I'm telling the truth. Where was he in the middle of the heat of the summer when healthcare was taking the big hits? He needed to be out of front stating that we HAD to have a robust public option but alias, he wasn't out there.
Here's my problem. Washington seems to be controlled by big business. Lobbyists from K St. seem to surround the Capital like locusts. If we scrapped the health-care bill and start all over, how are we going to come up with a different outcome? We're going to have the same politicians, the same White House and the same lobbyists. As a matter of fact, the lobbyists will be better armed to combat arguments they've already heard. They will probably be armed with more money. I'm afraid that starting over will leave us with a bill that's even worse than what we're looking at now -- if that is possible.
We're spending $2.4 trillion on health care every year (we spent that much in 2008). Isn't that enough money? Why do we need to pay any more? Everyone agrees that insurance does not add any value to healthcare. Why is Washington cobbling the insurance companies? Their whole reason for their existence is not to improve health care or help doctors deliver better care or help increase access to doctors by patients. Instead, their whole deal is to simply make money. They make money by not paying claims.
$2.4 trillion is enough money to take care of all 300 million Americans. Combine Medicare and Medicaid and SCHiP and all of the state run programs into one program. Medicare for All! The government will set up a system to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies and medical device/product manufacturers. Premiums are paid out of our taxes in a graduated fashion. The more you make, the more you pay. Let's extend patent protection for pharmaceutical companies by 2-5 years. Since the government is negotiating drug prices, pharmaceutical companies can recoup some of their losses through this mechanism. Doctors will be awarded for opening early and staying open late and on the weekends. This way, Americans can go to their physicians without having to take off from work. This increases access. Anyway, Medicare for All, at least for now, is a pipe dream. Right now, I'm good to try to work with my congressional representatives to try to get the best bill possible.
Billy Preston was right. Nothing from Nothing leaves nothing. The Senate is trying to sell us nothing and tell us it is something. They need to do better.
The LiberalOasis Radio Show: Reconcile This Edition listed in Radio Show
The LiberalOasis Radio Show was broadcast Saturday at 12 noon on WHMP in Western MA. We discuss the prospects for health care to be finalized with a simple majority vote in the Senate, following the Republican obstruction of unemployment insurance. Plus, "Momtroversies" essayist Traci Olsen on figuring out Twitter and Glenn Johnson gives liberals a pep talk.
You can download the podcast at these links: (iTunes / XML feed / MP3).
Fix the Recession then fix the Budget Deficits listed in Economy
Bill has been feeling under the weather lately. I hope that he gets well soon. I offered a friendly operation to help him, for reasons that aren't clear, he declined. ;-)
More on the budget and deficits. On Monday I discussed deficit peacocks (folks who talk about balancing the budget but vote for big ticket budget items). On Tuesday, I showed you a graph on budget deficits dating back to 1931. Today I'd like to talk a little bit about the recession and why we needed the stimulus package. I'm going to use an example that Paul Krugman uses in his book, The Return of Depression Economics. The example was originally used in an article entitled, "Monetary Theory and the Great Capitol Hill Babysitting Co-Op Crisis," by Joan and Richard Sweeney.
Over last two years, I wrote and read a lot about economics. I'm a lot smarter than I was then but I'm still no economics professor. What happens in a recession? Now, as I understand it, a lot of things happen in a recession. The end result is the loss of jobs. Let's use this babysitting co-op as an example - let's say approximately 150 couples get together and decide that they will babysit for each other when necessary. They come up with a system so that everything is fair for everyone. They will use coupons. Each coupon is worth one hour of babysitting. The only other thing that I think is important is that couples that join the co-op are given a certain number of coupons and every couple that leaves the co-op must turn in the coupons. Therefore, the currency is stable.
Several couples in this co-op turned out to be extremely frugal and somewhat homebodies. They wanted to accumulate coupons. This led to couples that went out relatively frequently, depleting their coupon supply. They looked for opportunities to babysit but with several couples staying at home, these opportunities were hard to find. This led more and more couples to stay home to accumulate coupons rather than dwindling their supply. As coupons become more and more scarce, and babysitting opportunities became extremely rare, the babysitting co-op was now experiencing a recession.
The problem in the system, the recession, was caused by the imbalance between too much supply (people wanting to babysit) and not enough demand (nobody wanting to go out). How do you fix this problem? The co-op could pass a law and require that couples go out a certain number of times per month. This would cause people to spend their coupons. It would also prevent people from hoarding coupons. That would be one solution. The other solution would be to increase the supply. With couples having an increased supply of coupons, there was no reason to hoard. More couples started to go out and the crisis was resolved.
So, back to the real world. The Obama administration was facing a recession that some thought could turn into a depression if there wasn't quick action. The Federal Reserve had already infused cash into the system. The Bush administration injected a small amount of cash right before he left office. Think of it as a mini stimulus plan. So Barack Obama and his economic advisers faced rising unemployment, increased foreclosure rates on home mortgages and a GDP that was falling or stagnant. They decided on a stimulus package. The question is how big should the stimulus package have been? Bush signed a $152 billion rebate plan (Economic Stimulus Act of 2008). There's very little evidence that that did anything. Our GDP is worth somewhere over $14.2 trillion. Bush's stimulus plan was somewhere around 1% of the Gross Domestic Product. Economists were saying somewhere between three and five percent was necessary truly to stimulate the economy and turn around this recession. The Democrats and the Obama administration settled on $800 billion for political reasons. They really could not get Congress to authorize more money. Remember, we just bailed out the banks. We just bought up toxic assets. The U.S. Treasury was hemorrhaging money. This does not include money that the U.S. Treasury directly infused into our economy (and foreign markets).
The bottom line is that you have to spend your way out of a recession. Once the recession has passed, then we can concentrate on balancing the budget. You can't balance the budget then stimulate the economy because there would be no economy to stimulate. One of the reasons that the Great Depression lasted so long was because deficit hawks hounded President Roosevelt after it looked like the economy was turning around. He tried to balance the budget too soon and this prolonged the recession/depression. In the State of the Union, you could hear Barack Obama walk the tightrope between fiscal responsibility and the necessity of spending money until the recession is officially over.
Notice that President Obama said almost exactly the same thing while answering questions from Republicans last Friday.
permalink
email
