Fact-esque

Kabuki Wins! Next Up: More Kabuki (Updated)

As carefully choreographed as it was, there was still some slight fear in the insurance community that healthcare "reform" might actually end up reforming something. This morning the NYT Business section was crowing with delight that insurers had dodged a bullet aimed in the opposite direction. This is the first sentence:

With a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system, Congress would be giving the health care industry as many as 32 million additional paying customers in the next few years.

So "overhaul" is now defined as providing victims for health insurance ripoff teams. Glad they got their priorities straight. I was concerned that somebody might think it necessary to rein in obscene profits and dirty tricks but it turns out that wasn't even on the agenda, let alone at the top of it. Here's what was:

The Status Quo

Via Thomas

Via Thomas. I'm trying to figure out how to download this.

A Uniquely Third World-America Solution!

Desperate to obstruct the closest chance we've got to real health care reform, rumor has it that the Senate Finance Committee is considering a uniquely third world-America model of care to replace a public health insurance plan option.  It works like this: if you don't have coverage - or even if you do but if care is unaffordable for you - you just show up once a year at an Area Medical Expedition.  The annual one in West Virginia works like this:

The 2009 Remote Area Medical (RAM) Expedition comes to the Virginia Appalachian mountains as Congress and President Obama wrestle with a health care overhaul. The event graphically illustrates gaps in the existing health care system."We're willing to sleep in pickup trucks or cars and deal with the elements to at least get some kind of health care," Reece adds. He earned a six-figure income working for an international industrial supply firm until an accident five years ago left him disabled. Joining him for dental, vision and medical checks are his wife, daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.

 "Tomorrow, I'm going to see the doctor to get my ear and my nose fixed!" grandson Jacob shouts excitedly. His nose appears battered and his ear has an oozing scab.

Problem solved!  And this model won't only work for rural areas, like the West Virginia example.  We in Philly have fond and grateful memories of Montel Williams driving his Big Pharma Bus through our area, tossing pills and insulin out the windows for the lucky duckies who could manage to crowd together within throwing distance:

A dozen people greeted the traffic-cone orange RV as it pulled into the Bensalem library parking lot Thursday morning, even though it would be an hour before anyone could climb aboard.
But they were desperate. The bus was their last resort.
Some like Kim hadn't taken their medication in three months, keeping just enough for an emergency dose.
She has a disorder that keeps her blood from clotting. A bad cut could hospitalize her, maybe kill her.
The drug Kim takes costs $800 for a 30-day supply. She is 18, a recent high school graduate who lost the health coverage she had through her mom.
Kim's story was only one of many heard by trained specialists on the bus.

Problem solved - by "trained specialists" - who needs fancy schmancy doctors?!   And the compassion and dignity practically ooze off the page - like matter from little Jacob's untended ear.  

Fun

They Both Reached for the Gun

Politico does its level best to keep the latest crazy zombie health care lie alive.   Here are the facts:

Myth vs. Fact: Advance Planning Consultations in H.R. 3200

 
Few areas are more vital for honest discussion and careful consideration than end-of-life care for America’s seniors.  Unfortunately, families often do not know their loved ones’ preferences for end of life care and are not confronted with these difficult decisions until an emergency arises. This leaves spouses, sons, daughters and grandchildren unprepared; as a result families struggle to make decisions in the midst of turmoil. 

The House health care legislation includes a provision (Sec. 1233) that provides seniors with better care as they grapple with these hard questions. This provision extends Medicare coverage to cover the cost of patients voluntarily speaking with their doctors about their values and preferences regarding end-of-life care. These are deeply personal decisions that take thoughtful consideration, and it is only appropriate that doctors be compensated for their time. 

 Myths and Facts about this provision 
 
Myth: Patients will be forced to have this consultation once every five years.

• Fact: Advance planning consultations are not mandatory; this benefit is completely voluntary.  The provision merely provides coverage under Medicare to have a conversation once every five years if – and only if – a patient wants to make his or her wishes known to a doctor. If desired, patients may have consultations more frequently if they are chronically ill or if their health status changes.

Myth: Patients will be forced to sign an advance care directive (or living will).

• Fact: Patients will never be forced to sign a living will; there is no mandate in the bill to complete an advance care directive. If a patient chooses to complete an advance directive or order for life sustaining treatment, these documents will help articulate a full range of treatment preferences, from full and aggressive treatment to limited, comfort care only.  Patients can customize these written documents so that their values are fully reflected, helping family members understand a loved one’s wishes so they can be respected.

Myth: Patients will have to see a health care professional chosen by the government.

• Fact: The government will not choose the doctor; physician choice is entirely up to the patient.  The legislation simply has Medicare pay for the consultation if the patient wishes to talk with his or her doctor about their preferences and values.  

Beyond the Law: Health Care Liars Lie Their Asses Off

Apparently the Bush Administration disconnected all the laws on truth-in-advertising because the insurance industry is lying its bloody ass off in its anti-govt-healthcare commercials. I was at the laudromat yesterday and saw a commercial - replayed several times over the next hour on CNN - in which some Canadian woman says she couldn't get her brain tumor taken care of in Canada and had to come to the US. The opening line was (paraphrase:) "If I had to depend on Canada's gocernment-run health care, I'd be dead right now." The tagline was something like "Don't let government interference in medicine kill you".

What I Do 18 Hours a Day

Okay, it only feels like 18 hours a day but it's why I haven't been helping Mick shoulder the burden around here.  (thank you, thank you, Mick) I've been organizing support for a strong public health insurance plan option.  Here's Howard Dean making my job easier. I love this guy.

Health Care Reform is About Choice

Oh Noes! The GOP Doesn't Have a Health Care Plan!!!11!!

If you read this story from the detestable Politico, you might get a few wrong ideas. 

First, you may believe that the fight to get real health care reform is all about the Democrats vs. the Republicans.  But one look at the "moderate" "independent" "Blue Dog" showboats dragging down the Democrats will open anyone's eyes on that score.  The real battle lines are easier to understand than party lines. This fight is between people invested in the corporate status quo and people who want to fix our health care system so that the various industry strangleholds are weakened enough so that some semblance of competition, universality, quality, efficiency and affordability is allowed to take root.  That's not going to happen without a public health insurance plan option and strict federal regulation of (at the very least) the insurance industry.  And low and behold, the article that's all about how the Republicans are "stumbling" makes the following point clear:

Nobody on the GOP side is waving a white flag. They think some of Obama’s ideas, including a government-run health insurance plan, will be such non-starters with the American people that they can recover in time to stop them.

"Recover in time."  Right.  That brings us to the second wrong idea you may get from the story, which is that the GOP doesn't have a plan to obstruct health care reform.  Of course they do - you're living it as you wonder if your coverage will actually cover you, or if you'll be able to afford next month's premium, or how you can afford the bills that your plan didn't cover, or a million other tribulations that are built into our failed market system.   You're watching the corporatist, obstructionist plan unfold with every word you read in that Politico story and others like it. 

The plan is to do nothing until the last minute and then derail the process by ginning up fear - fear of losing coverage, fear of dark-skinned people getting something for nothing, fear of the poor getting something for nothing, fear of realizing that we are all in the same boat with the poor and the dark-skinned, fear of loss of "freedom,"  fear of cancer and heart disease, fear of the unknown, fear of change .... It goes on and on because when you're talking about fear, you really are talking about a bottomless pit in the human psyche.   The plan is evil and cowardly and the people who push it will be recorded in our history as leaders of an evil and cowardly obstructionist movement but it is a Plan.  It's silly to pretend otherwise and doing so helps the obstructionists, which, probably, is the point of the story in the first place.