Palin Pens WSJ Op-Ed On Health Care

Sarah Palin looks to frame the debate on health care with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. One can break it down into a few basic themes: common sense based on experience and observation versus unproven theoretical constructs; government rarely, if ever, truly solves anything, often only making it worse; and who do you ultimately want to have control of you, your life, death and health care options?

Would that be you, at least as a consumer of it, or the government? Obviously, there's little doubt as to my own sentiments. Read the rest at link above.

How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

Instead of poll-driven "solutions," let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.

Comments

[Lala]

She also wrote a letter to New York State Senator Ruben Diaz

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/09/08/palin-sends-written-testimony-about-death-panels-ny-state-senate

[mark l.]

a very generous opportunity from the wsj for palin.

the editorial on the eve of the "mother of all healthcare speeches"?
pelosi and reid 'saying' they have the votes?
word has it, that he is going for "public option" in the speech.

this is like watching an admin dousing themselves in kerosene, without giving up chain smoking.

[DaveinPhoenix]

Fining people $3800 for not having health care coverage. Great. Eff you Obama. Eff you Pelosi. Eff you Reid. I dare you communist pussies to come collect from me. Not one effing dime. You have the votes to ram this down our throats after 9 months of trying ? Go for it. And then come try to collect one effing dime from me you pussies. Good luck.

[Bob]

". . . who do you ultimately want to have control of you, your life, death and health care options?

Would that be you, at least as a consumer of it, or the government?"

Or how about an insurance company paper-pusher looking for a specious excuse to renege on paying your medical bills so the company can boost its profits?

Remeber, "government-run healthcare" like Medicare and the VA have significantly higher satisfaction rates among their clients than private insurers do.

http://news.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-2/Survey-3A-Medicare-gets-higher-marks-from-enrollees-than-private-insurance-6883-1/

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=14560

The facts prove that government-run healthcare is better than private insurance.

[Mark Turner]

Bob: The "facts" you use to defend your argument are based on survey results from 2001 and 2005. You don't suppose that peoples' perceptions and sets of issues have fundamentally changed in 8 years and 4 years, respectively? Do you have any more recent data from the sources you cite?

Furthermore, how is the "satisfaction" defined? Quality of care? Ease of insurance claim processing? Cost of treatment? Quality of care in the US as a whole is among the best in the world, so high marks for satisfaction would be expected. Cost is another issue - and with regard to claim denials, there is plenty that Medicare will not cover (and they will deny claims if the wrong diagnosis code or the wrong name spelling in associated with an invoice otherwise eligible for claim)...not to mention the Indian Health Service, which is also a US-government run healthcare program but it is hardly a bastion of quality or cost-effectiveness.

Also, the Commonwealth Fund states that it is a "private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults" -- what stature does it have with regard to the accuracy and methodology of its surveys? It sounds like just another special interest group...

[Reality Check]

Fork, stick it in, done, etc.

Her 15 minutes are OVER.

[Tim]

Are the anti-Palin trolls left over from Trig Truther Jesse's exposure still hanging around here?

Sorry, Dan.

[Dan Riehl]

Nah. All you have to do is mention her name, drives them all moonbat-chit crazy.

It's one of the big pluses she has going for her. They often mouth-froth and embarass themselves more than usual when like that!

[mark l.]

"Fining people $3800 for not having health care coverage."

the youth voters wanted change. now they get to pony up.

[Barbara]

Dave,
As part of the plan allows government to pry into all of your assets - bank accounts etc they won't be knocking at your door they will simply TAKE IT electronically.
Other options if they can't confiscate $ that way:
they will enact similar legislation that is used for child support, don't pay no drivers license.
lien on home.
inability to get any credit.
you get the drift they have a bottomless bag of tricks to confiscate YOUR $.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Go ahead, Make my damn day. You are going to Tax my cokes and pepsi? Take your diet drinks and shove them. That stuff will kill you. Guess you don't care about the danger in the sweetners in diet drinks. How bout all those fat kids and their fat mama's take responsibility for thier own faults. I am thin, have been all my life. Now, you want me to pay for the fat lazy folks problems with obesity ? NOT ! Get a real job for once in your life and quit trying to make this country into a nanny state.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/08/2009-09-08_president_obama_says_sin_tax_on_sodas_is_food_for_thought.html

[Neo]

Palin sure gets a lot of ink for somebody who the Left considers .. well fill in your own expletive.

[Mike]

Dan, you forgot the scare quotes around the word wrote,
as in: Sarah Palin "wrote" an op-ed in the WSJ.

[Lala]

WPE, what's funny is that every fat person I know drinks diet soda. I said to two fatties once maybe you are fat because the diet soda is causing you to load up on carbohydrates, your body is craving sugar.

Also, my daughter ended up in the hospital with severe stomach pain caused by aspartame in sugarless gum. I call it rat poison.

[Daisy]

Lala, you don't think it might have been the maltitol, used as a filler in sugarless gum and also the active ingredient in baby laxative? It doesn't cause problems in most people because of the very small amount in a piece of gum...but if someone consumes a lot of gum, it could cause bloating and gas.

[Lala]

If she eats anything with aspartame in it she gets cramps, and it's in a lot of food.

[syn]

I suppose the one positive aspect to government-run health-everything is that Bob will be standing forever in line waiting to receive his health-care-denied letter stamped with Obama's seal of approval.

[mark l.]

aspartame is the devil.
I understand that most people don't react to it. I do.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"Or how about an insurance company paper-pusher looking for a specious excuse to renege on paying your medical bills so the company can boost its profits?"

Let's show an example of what Bob considers a "specious excuse".

"Many patients, he said, are paid $500 a month for the use of their Medicare numbers, which the crooked companies attach to repeated claims that they send to Medicare. Anticipating that the patients will receive notices of these claims in the mail, the crooked health care providers instruct the patients to just to ignore them.

"We have a large number of what we call professional patients, people who's livelihood it is to exist off their Medicare numbers," said Delaney. Some of them are actual HIV/AIDS patients who accept kickbacks to receive phony "infusion", or intravenous, treatments which are then billed to Medicare at very expensive rates.

For many involved in the fraud schemes, Ogrosky added, the illegally-derived Medicare payments are viewed as somewhat of an entitlement. "I've heard people say things like if you don't take this money that the government's giving out, they're just going to give it to someone else, and that's outrageous.""

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921/page/2/

I think we've all figured out what Government Care Bob does for a living. Government Care Bob whines and cries that he is "entitled" to this money and that if you don't give it to him, you're a hater and a murderer.

[Bob]

"Bob: The "facts" you use to defend your argument are based on survey results from 2001 and 2005. You don't suppose that peoples' perceptions and sets of issues have fundamentally changed in 8 years and 4 years, respectively? Do you have any more recent data from the sources you cite?"

Mark, aren't you even responsible for proving your own arguments? Why don't YOU find some evidence to support your claim. But never mind, I know that's asking too much. As I expected, the evidence shows that in more recent years, things have moved more even MORE in favor of Medicare. Here's one survey from 2007:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20090629_2600.php

"We can test that question with data from a set of surveys known as the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. CAHPS is an initiative of the Department of Health and Human Services that developed a standardized survey questionnaire used by virtually all health insurance plans -- public and private -- to assess patient satisfaction. Most private insurers use the CAHPS questionnaire and disclose the data to the National Committee for Quality Assurance in order to receive their accreditation. So thanks to CAHPS, we have a massive collection of data comparisons of how patients experience and rate Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance.

Those comparisons show the depth of Medicare's popularity. According to a national CAHPS survey conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2007, 56 percent of enrollees in traditional fee-for-service Medicare give their "health plan" a rating of 9 or 10 on a 0-10 scale. Similarly, 60 percent of seniors enrolled in Medicare Managed Care rated their plans a 9 or 10. But according to the CAHPS surveys compiled by HHS, only 40 percent of Americans enrolled in private health insurance gave their plans a 9 or 10 rating."

Here's another survey that's even more recent:

http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Medicare/2009/20090512-SenCitLikeMedicare.htm

"May 12, 2009 – Senior citizen Medicare beneficiaries – those who have reached age 65 - are more satisfied with their health care, and experience fewer problems accessing and paying for care, than Americans with employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), according to a study by Commonwealth Fund researchers published today on the Health Affairs Website.

The gap between consumers' ratings of Medicare and ESI has widened since a similar survey in 2001. This study was based on data gathered in 2007."

As far as criteria go, Mark, apparently they include things like having "fewer problems accessing and paying for care." The key finding that answers your question says, "The gap between consumers' ratings of Medicare and ESI has widened since a similar survey in 2001." But I guess it's easier to pretend that government-run health care is so terrible when you don't risk looking up the facts yourself, seeing as how you'll only be proven wrong.

[North Dallas Thirty]

Oh look. When you dig a little deeper, what a surprise; Bob's "surveys" stacked the deck.

First:

"In both studies, the Medicare beneficiaries over age 64 were considered separately from younger Americans receiving Medicare due to disability."

But why would a think tank that supports socialized medicine do such a thing as to leave younger Americans out?

Answer here:

"First, younger Americans not enrolled in Medicare do not share the enthusiasm of seniors for the program. Six years ago, the Kaiser Foundation asked a national sample of adults to rate the Medicare program. Medicare was hugely popular among those aged 65 or greater. Eighty percent rated Medicare favorably. Similarly, more than half of seniors (62 percent) considered Medicare "well run" compared to only 28 percent willing to say the same of "private health plans such as PPOs and HMOs that people get through their jobs."

Those under 65, however, had very different views. Only 45 percent rated Medicare favorably. Only 36 percent considered it well run, as compared to 47 percent who said the same about private health plans. While 73 percent of those over 65 said Medicare allowed patients to choose any doctor, only 28 percent of those under 65 agreed."

And you know what's even funnier? When you go to the actual CAHPS page, there's this nasty little disclaimer:

"Readers should note that the Medicare results presented here may differ from other reports due to the inclusion or exclusion of certain beneficiary groups and/or the use of case-mix adjustment variables. The survey data were collected from February through June."

https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/CAHPSIDB/Public/about.aspx

So in other words, they massage the Medicare data in a way they don't for private insurance. What a surprise; a government agency manipulating data to improve the rankings on a program it runs.

Of course, what's hilariously funny is that Government Care Bob is the one who's demanding CUTS in Medicare. What does he think that's going to do to satisfaction, even with the manipulated numbers?

[Bob]

"Readers should note that the Medicare results presented here may differ from other reports due to the inclusion or exclusion of certain beneficiary groups and/or the use of case-mix adjustment variables. The survey data were collected from February through June."

"Differ" means that the specific numbers might change depending on the scenario that was analyzed. For your issue to matter, North Dallas, you'd have to show that it affected the overall trend. And nowhere do you say anything about enrollee's satisfaction rates being higher for private insurance than for Medicare under any analysis scenario. Do any such results exist? They'd better, for your complaint to matter. Otherwise it's just meaningless nit-picking.

So your challenge is to go out and find a reputable survey that shows people rating private insurance higher than medicare. Does any such data exist? It's up to you to prove your own point -- which you haven't done so far -- so we'll be waiting.

[Bob]

Well, it looks like petty nit-picking was the best that poor North Dallas could do. At what point, you wonder, would North Dallas be forced -- due to a lack of any evidence to support his argument -- to simply admit that, yes, Medicare is a very good healthcare plan that keeps its enrollees very satisfied.

Sure, nothing is perfect. But if Medicare or the VA are imperfect, then according to customer satisfaction surveys, private health insurance is way LESS perfect. Medicare provides better service and produces a higher level of satisfaction than private insurance. The facts prove it. So why aren't opponents of health care reform honest enough to simply admit it?