Monday, July 20, 2009
Congress / Politics / Woods Blackburn Drags Out TennCare's Corpse: 'We've Tried Gov't-Run Health Care Already'
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 7:46 AM
"There is no example that you can point to that shows where having private insurance in competition with the public option brings the costs down. It leads to exploding costs."That has led to this article (and many more to come doubtlessly) in which the main point is this: TennCare didn't work out so well, therefore any health plan involving the government won't work either. Here's Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association:
"The public plan they are talking about in Congress makes me nervous, because it does seem like TennCare a lot. Once people got on TennCare, they wouldn't get off because it was a better deal [than private insurance]. There were several court cases to get people off the rolls that didn't belong. I have no doubt we would go down the same road nationally with a public plan."
This logic, of course, ignores Medicaid and Medicare, which along with Social Security have lifted generations of Americans out of poverty and helped them live longer, better lives. It would be more productive to look at what went wrong with TennCare and how to avoid making the same mistakes. But then, that would defeat the purpose of Blackburn and the Republican right wing, which is to kill health care reform for the insurance companies.
Comments (10)
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ObamaCare does look a lot like TennCare.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
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Mr. Woods,
"This logic, of course, ignores Medicaid and Medicare, which along with Social Security have lifted generations of Americans out of poverty and helped them live longer, better lives. It would be more productive to look at what went wrong with TennCare and how to avoid making the same mistakes."
So the logic of your position is that we achieved a result that you like without any need to question whether there are better options that we might apply given the changing nature of our demographics, improvements in medical care and the evolving economy?
How about looking at how those developments have created serious problems in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid before we lock ourselves into another program that will become impervious to reform once it is in place?
I'm sure Blackburn would be amused that you're trying to hold up Medicare and Medicaid as a counter to her position since both of them are even bigger failures than Tenncare is.
Medicare is a perfect example of exploding costs.
When it was started in the mid-sixties, the governmetn projected the annual cost for 1990 would be $12 billion. The actual cost for 1990 was $107 billion. The unfunded liability for Medicare is double digit trillions.
State Medicaid programs are insolvent all over the country. A chunk of the so-called "stimulus" bill actually went to prop up those failing programs.
AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.
Progressive democrats the Tri-Caucus and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust government-run public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and request that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).
Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.
In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!
If President Obama has to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to rescue the American people from our healthcare crisis, he will need all the sustained support you can give him. STICK WITH HIM! He’s doing a brilliant job.
THIS IS THE BIG ONE!
THE BATTLE OF GOOD Vs EVIL!
Join the fight.
Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!
(http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/publicoption) (http://www.actblue.com/page/healthcareheroes)
God Bless You
Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS
Another one of Obama's lies about his socialized medicine scheme is that his public option plan will compete with private plans to "help keep them honest".
His idea of "competition" is to outlaw individual health insurance plans.
Investors business daily took the trouble to actually read the provisions of the house bill and it prohibits the issuance of any new individual health policies after the date the proposed legislation goes into effect.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854
A national state of emergency? Good vs Evil?
Citizen Jacques sounds like he is ready to start beheading the aristos.
Talk about hate speech and threats to Democracy.
Mark:
That is obviousy a cut and paste spam post that is being targeted for dumping into any blog they can find that has any posts about healthcare.
GM,
Mind-numbed Leftist robot emails? What a great innovation.
Now that gives an all new and really funny option for Mad Libs.
Make your own Daily Kos Mad Libs. That could put the New York Times, MSNBC and some Pith writers out of work.
Jacksmith....
ALLCAPS DOES NOT ADD URGENCY TO YOUR MESSAGE BUT INSTEAD MAKES YOU SOUND CRAZY! I WOULD SUGGEST YOU STOP TO THE BENEFIT OF YOUR CRUSADE AGAINST EVIL.
And as for your reference the WHO's rankings of healthcare systems worldwide, please check out this page for more information on how those rankings are meant to be used:
http://nweps.wordpress.com/category/healthcare/
Holy cow. jacksmith's spam comment almost sounds halfway logical until you read the parts where it says, "Progressive democrats the Tri-Caucus and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust government-run public option for all Americans,"
and, "If President Obama has to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to rescue the American people from our healthcare crisis, he will need all the sustained support you can give him. STICK WITH HIM! He's doing a brilliant job."
Don't give up your guns, and do not vote for a government-run = government-OWNED healthcare program. Socialism is one step closer to communism, and the "common good" is a big, fuggin lie.
