News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-02-04/news-roundup-hour-1
A Republican effort to repeal the health care law fails in the Senate. The House considers new limits on the growth of Medicare. And a monster winter storm batters one-third of the nation. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Naftali Bendavid
national correspondent, The Wall Street Journal.
Susan Davis
congressional correspondent, National Journal.
Ron Elving
Washington editor for NPR.
Friday News Roundup Video
Diane and the panelists discuss the Supreme Court's potential role in deciding the constitutionality of the individual mandate portion of the health care law, and they respond to a caller's concerns about the desperate situation many Americans face who can not afford health care insurance coverage:
Comments
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There is a great deal of discussion on the airways regarding unemployment. What I am hearing from employers is people are not applying for jobs. With nearly 2 years of unemployment benefits available, free phones and heat from government agencies, food stamps and whatever else is out there, people are not desperate to find work. In other words, there is work out there but people are not going after the jobs.
To not choose IS to take part - when I do not stop a crime, it is considered actionable by the law; when I allow someone to die, it is an actionable activity. It does not wash that no activity does not impact commerce, it does; especially as they then go to ER rooms.
Perhaps your panelists would care to comment on spending from a different perspective. What spending is it that has gone up so much since 2000, when we last had a national budget surplus? Why can we not reduce that spending? Please also ask them, in their answer, to differentiate between discretionary spending and automatic transfers like welfare, food stamps, medicaid, etc.
To those individuals who agree that it is unconstitutional to mandate everyone to have health care insurance I pose a question. If a person does not have health care coverage and requires health care including emergency care then it should be the option of the hospital or physician to reject them. Since this is not an option it is a moral responsibility of each and every one of us to have some form of coverage. It is mandatory to have auto insurance and yet some will never use it. It is unlikely anyone will not require some form of health care in their lifetime.
Benjamin N. Carroccio
I don't understand what is Wrong with the current Health Bill?
The insured are paying more for their coverage to pay for the uninsured. Taxpayers are paying more in taxes and interest on the federal budget deficit to pay for the uninsured. How is that just? All of us use the health care system yet only some of us are paying more to cover those who either choose not to buy health insurance or can not afford health insurance.
Quite simply - the health care law is unconstitutional.
Deficit? Military spending? So called domestic security? Global power and control? Where has the greatest increase in U.S. spending been focused since the Reagan years? How much money has been pulled out of social security for other projects? Shadow government? Corporate welfare? Patriot Act? Avoidance, 9/11, two fabricated wars? How does the system work? Right!
One thought about Social Security... according to the American Academy of Actuaries, the single most effective wqy of saving the SS system is to lift the cap entirely. and, doing so fits very well with Reagan's pronouncement that taxes should be levied fairly on all citizens. It is interesting to note that that simple step is the single possibility consistently ignored by all the pundits currently considering fiscal reform.
An earlier caller asked specifically if Republicans were reducing their own salaries and benefits. One of the panelists answered that they cut their budgets by 5%.
But that could refer to purchasing cheaper office supplies. I'd like to know if they cut their salaries and benefits to get a little taste of what much of the rest of the population is experiencing.
Your comment is insulting to the majority of unemployed Americans. My husband spent every day for three years looking for a job after his IT position was outsourced to another country. His former employer was given tax incentives to outsource his entire department except for one employee.
I have many friends with 30 years of experience and post-graduate degrees who can't find work. They spend part of each day looking for work; networking with former colleagues; and going to locate community colleges to maintain or improve their skills. They hate being unemployed and willing to work anywhere in the USA or even in other countries. They can't find work!
The top executives are making decisions not to hire to boost their profits. Their current employees are working longer and longer hours out of FEAR of losing their jobs. If top executives compensation packages were tied into long term profits (5 or 10 years) rather then quarterly or annual profits, you would see more hiring. Companies let go 10% of their staff due to financial reasons then their top executives receive undisclosed huge compensation packages.
Not to make light of a problem, but many people consider health insurance unaffordable when they are, in fact, making poor choices such as paying for luxuries such as cable TV, cell phone, etc. rather than the not-so-fun health insurance. I don't know how to separate the real needy from the people making poor choices, however.
Sorry. Read the Commerce Clause.
And remember, you won't have to buy insurance. Your employer can buy it for you. Or you can forego it entirely and pay the health tax.
Related to your current story about health care, and the anecdote about the woman who goes to the ER when she's sick because she can't afford health care...
Things aren't necessarily better for many of us who *do* have employer-funded health care. My employer offers me great coverage, but my salary is so low that after the premium is deducted from my check, I can't afford the co-pay required for office visits. In other words, I've got insurance (for the first time in 6 years), but can't access it because I can't afford both the check deduction and the co-pay.
Something *has* to be done about American healthcare, and it's tremendously frustrating to hear those (often Republicans) who trash "Obama Care" without offering a workable solution. All one has to do to see that The Market isn't going to fix this problem is look out the window or talk to a neighbor. When I was a child I was always told that a college degree and a good work ethic would insure my future. I've got a great work ethic and 3 college degrees (1 undergraduate and 2 graduate), work 2 jobs and can't make ends meet. Help!
An unemployed friend spends $1000 per month for medical insurance. She doesn't have luxuries. She has a Master's degree from a top US university and over 30 years of work in the private sector.
I can give you multiple examples of people spending more on medical insurance and less on food/electricity/clothes in order to continue their insurance. A small business owner told me that he is spending $75,000 a year on health insurance to cover seven employees. Another self-employed friend told me of their medical insurance costs going up while the insurance covers less and less.
Another friend is a surgeon. He had to hire an attorney to get the health insurance companies to pay for emergency surgeries. They try to use legal loopholes to get around paying for reconstructive surgery for people in horrific accidents. Now, some of his emergency room patients after he treats them in a medical crisis situation, refuse to pay their co-pays.
Our health care system is directed by greedy business people who care only about profits. This is the same reason that drove our financial systems into creating riskier and riskier banking products which nearly brought down the global financial system. It is time that the average person begin to reason that they need to use their voices if you want to change our morally bankrupt system. Money and greed are driving us into the ditch.
Just wonder who is paying for Rep. Gifford's care. I know my insurance would not have paid to transport me to Houston for re-hab. And even the re-hab wouldn't last very long under most folks' insurance.
Regarding the Constitutionality of the mandate to purchase insurance: I continue to hear that this mandate is the first time that requiring action has been incorporated in the "Commerce Clause" to the Constitution. Mandating doctors and hospitals to treat patience is a mandate too, isn't it?
Perhaps this isn't included in the "Commerce Clause"
Also, Jerry Jones spent a billion dollars on Dallas Stadium. It has a retractable roof. The panelists need to read the sport section occasionally...
Egypts problems with poverty and no jobs for youth are the result of a doubling of their population in the last 30 years during Mubarik's rule. Please discuss. Thanks.
Russ
Nebo, NC
I am so frustrated that the Republicans don't even attempt to address the real problems of health care and are willing to sacrifice the health of the American people and the economy (which has been hijacked by escalating health care costs) in order to try to win political points. Political campaigning never ends, but the lives of millions will diminished and in some cases threatened if the health care law is undermined and underfunded, and finally defeated by a very biased court.
Anne
Not to question your husband's and friends desire to find work with all their degrees,etc. Have they thought about looking for simple, non-degreed, blue collar jobs? They are out there, but many Americans have been used to having good jobs and it is really hard to step down.
A good example has been Germany of the past. Majority of Germans at one time would not do the trash clean up,etc so they had Eastern Europeans immigrant to do those less desired jobs? Now German born are doing those types of jobs.
The last fifteen years we have seen advancements in IT. But that same IT back in the early to mid-90's displaced secretaries and other clerical types of jobs. Even though we were told by the government back them that for every one IT job created an additional 7 new jobs would result.
This is why some of us have to be flexible in doing jobs we do not like. I did temp work in the past cleaning toilets,etc because I had to much pride in going to government assistance.
Anne:
The Health Care Reform Act did not include competition across state lines, health saving accounts, and tort reform which account for CBO figures of 60 Billion a year in litigation.
US New & World Report magazine stated in an August 2009 issue that Health Insurance makes their parent company 6%. It is life insurance which is the most profitable.
But to say that health insurance companies are greedy is totally wrong. Ask your surgeon friend what percentage of doctors would accept Medicare & Medicaid patients. There is one state in the union that I know about that only 45% of the health practitioners accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. The payment for treatment are low and takes a long time to collect.
Carolyn Prescott:
Sure they have. How about competition across state lines, medical saving accounts, and tort reform? What make you think that a government controlled system is going to control costs? They never have. Look how they destroyed SS. Just this week SS is projected to be in the hole for 45 Billion dollars. Just think if the Democratic' s would not have borrowed from the fund back in 1966 to pay for the war and the Great Society. People would today get a cost of living adjustment plus their principle.
Medicare is project to be in the red in 2017. So everything I am paying in SS and Medicare will never be recovered.
My husband applied for minimum wage jobs at the big box stores, Starbucks, etc. and my unemployed friends are willing to work at minimum wage positions too. Employers don't even respond to their applications. Age discrimination is alive and well. One friend had a job interview in NYC; dug out her car hours after a snowstorm; took the train into NYC; and managed to arrive early for her job interview. Guess what? The HR director cancelled her appointment because he got called into another meeting.
Social Security could be easily solved by raising the minimum retirement age to 70 as recommended by the Federal Budget Deficit Commission and by increasing the amount paid by high income earners.
My surgeon friend advocates for a single-payer plan or a public option. He accepts Medicaid and Medicare because he believes in treating everyone. When a patient comes into the ER, he must treat them.
Health insurance companies are making huge profits. They are greedy. They deny legitimate claims because most people give up fighting them. The Health Care Reform Act limits the amount of money that the health insurance industry can apply to administrative overhead thus reducing their profits.
As it is now, the "best health care system" is one that few and fewer can afford. I lean towards a single-payer(You know-the one we pilfer drugs from up North) or even a nationalized system. Speaking for myself-it's not so much I woke up one morning a "socialist". It was dealing with my insurance company that made me(and I suspect others) one. President Obama ripped the public option rug out from underneath making us all captive to the "enemy". As such, I'm not sure where the health law sits with me except I usually find myself more angry at its proponents than its opponents.
1. It would be nice if we at least considered the idea that "health care" and "health insurance" are different things
2. The commerce clause has become the swiss army knife of legal excuses and needs to be amended. Car insurance is just as "mandateable" as health insurance under the commerce clause. In the abstract sense I can refuse health treatment just as readily as I can refuse to drive. In the practical sense, both are virtual requirements of living in this society.
3. Although not legal, doctors and hospitals refusing treatment is an option. Not a nice one but neither is having your health care tethered to a profit report.
4. The statement has been made "People who have health insurance pay more for those who don't." Perhaps but I doubt health insurance's affordability will significantly improve under the law. And why has NPR et al spent tons upon tons of time on the health insurance/care debate with barely mentioning just how it is that those bills of tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars come into being and what relation do they have to the costs. The one exception I heard on NPR was Allyx? Spiegel's report on why hysterectomies and why they were being performed an inordinate amount. That was getting "under the hood" of health care. Whatever the system, healthcare as well as health insurance affordability must be addressed.
This I guess includes Blue Cross Blue Shield. It not perfect but I really appreciate that I have it. And as for employment, very thankful. That as a 54 yr old male with a bachelors only, I was able to get the best job of my life after being unemployed for 6 months in 2010 by a Fortune 500 company. Hired by a supervisor who is around 15 yrs younger than I who could of hired an alumnus.
Like I told a friend who is in Investment Banking a month before being hired and not seeing him in 20yrs, " it just seems that my career though steady has been mostly blue collar and not really mentally challenging".
Hope that your husband and friends find employment. Come to Texas, we have whithered the recession pretty well, thought the state's deficit is 27 billion.
In listening to the discussion about being forced to buy health insurance I found it interesting that we did not bring up the retirement insurance we are forced to pay for by the government. Except it is called social security. Why is that constitutional as I have no choice but to pay for this insurance?
You spent a lot of time about unaffordability of medical insurance and care, but paid little attention as to why this is. I am now retired after over 40 years of providing primary care. I made a good living, though continually was (and am) amazed by the incomes of proceduralists. I'm biased, but believe that physicians doing procedures are overly compensated--and this is a great incentive for young physicians to become proceduralists. Drug costs are totally unreasonable. Those I prescribed 50 years ago can cost hundreds to fhousands of dollars for a course of therapy. Hospital costs provide great luxury, but not all that is needed for good care. Insurance premiums go up and up inexorably. One insurance CEO made a billion dollars.
Take off the gloves! Challenge these costs. Yes, there are abuses that are not being picked up appropriately, but these are a small percentage of the overall costs.
It's a bit hard listening to a group of well-paid pundits discussing with much concern the need for austerity and belt-tightening, the major impact of which will undoubtedly fall upon the poor and disenfranchised, without so much as one word about raising taxes.