Joseph A. Palermo: Warfare Over Health Care
We're being taken for a ride. The Blue Dogs and other fellow travelers ask us to be frugal when considering the general health of our citizens. But where were these spendthrift "deficit hawks" when Congress pushed through the lavish Pentagon spending bill and the operating budgets for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan? No nation on Earth could afford to garrison 130,000 soldiers in one country and 57,000 in another for years and years, and pile these expenses on the biggest military budget in the world without suffering some kind of fiscal catastrophe. Well, welcome to George W. Bush's "New World Order."
It was President Reagan who called Afghanistan the Soviet Union's "Vietnam" (which is odd since he also called the Vietnam war a "noble cause"). Now Afghanistan is our "Vietnam." Those cunning mujahadeen fighters and their allies and descendants, who Reagan called "freedom fighters," are no different today. If anything, they're a lot tougher. They utilize the difficult terrain of their barren, balkanized country, as well as clever guerrilla tactics (as the Vietnamese did) to vanquish would-be occupiers. The U.S. "coalition," in most Afghans' eyes, probably looks like the same old bunch of white guys trying to impose imperial control over their lands. The U.S. policy of escalation and targeted drone killings in the border regions will do little to deter "terrorists" from attacking the United States but does a lot to promote political instability inside nuclear-armed Pakistan.
In Iraq, the violent jockeying for real power has already begun between the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Once the fighting escalates to a certain level there'll be loud yelps in the corridors of power in Washington for a renewed U.S. military effort in Iraq. (We can only imagine what will leap from the lips of Newt Gingrich and Liz Cheney).
But President Obama has shown that in the area of foreign policy, at least, he is clearly in the driver's seat. I'm confident that whatever acts of barbarity occur in Iraq as U.S. soldiers are slowly withdrawn he's not stupid enough to listen to the advice of the Kenneth Pollacks and the Michael O'Hanlons and re-invade the country. The Halliburton/KBR/Brookings Institution party in Iraq is over.
On Afghanistan I'm not so sure.
In Congress, those who wanted to keep the F-22 jet fighter boondoggling along raised an uproar over cutting a measly $1.5 billion out of a military budget that has swelled to over $630 billion. And there are many voices in this same Congress that tell us we cannot afford to spend a fraction of that sum on the health of our citizens, even while fifty million of us have no health coverage at all.
The staggering costs of maintaining a global empire is eating away at the innards of this country. Nothing illustrates this point more than the debate on health care that's going on right now in the Senate Finance Committee. Senators are wrestling with saving a penny here and a penny there when they're aimed at bolstering people's health, but they believe the sky is the limit so long as the money is being funneled into imperial pursuits and foreign occupations. Most obscene of all is seeing the same men and women who called for wasting the nation's blood and treasure on occupying Iraq now become misers when Americans are clamoring for a sensible health care system.
Andy Ostroy: Gates and Crowley Share a White House Beer. President Obama Declares and End to Racism
Ya gotta love America. Two weeks ago, when Police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. were screaming at each other like Archie Bunker and George Jefferson, I'm fairly certain the last thing either man thought at that racially-charged moment was that they'd soon be sipping beer together and yukking it up in the White House Rose Garden with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. But that's precisely what they did this week, proving once again that anything can and will happpen in this nutty country of ours.
In a storybook ending worthy of Rodney "why can't we all just get along" King, the Massachusetts antagonists posed in what will go down in political history as the cheesiest, most embarrassing and most gratuitously sensational photo-op ever.
Crowley, after his highly controversial disorderly-conduct arrest of Prof. Gates in his own home, suggested to Obama, after the leader-of-the-free-world said the Cambridge police "acted stupidly," that the three of them get together for a White House brewsky to kiss and make up. A boneheaded suggestion which the president boneheadedly accepted.
With the four men seated at a round table with their frosty mugs of Blue Moon, Bud Light, Sam Adams Light and Buckler's beers, and with Biden and Obama with uprolled sleeves, the picture could not have looked more fake and insincere. What the hell the president intended to get out of this Kumbaya charade is anyone's guess. Neither Gates or Crowley will dislike each other any less, and race relations in America will not be changed one single iota.
That Obama felt the need to inject himself into this non-story and take away precious presidential time from pressing economic and health care matters is beyond belief. For an awfully bright guy who usually has laser-like focus on priorities, this time he's bungled it big time.
More on Joe Biden
Corazon Aquino, restored democracy to Philippines
The charismatic widow of assassinated opposition leader drove dictator from office, but the head of the 'people power' movement left a mixed legacy of political and natural disasters.Corazon C. Aquino, the unassuming housewife who toppled a dictator and restored democracy to the Philippines as its 11th president, has died. She was 76.
Liberal Democrats threaten to reject House healthcare compromise
Dozens say they'll vote against a plan that includes concessions to Blue Dogs. The dispute could jeopardize a long-held goal of the left.After months of marching in line as senior Democrats worked with the White House to develop healthcare legislation, liberal lawmakers from solidly Democratic districts are threatening a revolt that could doom President Obama's bid to sign a major bill this year.
Don McNay: The 95 Percent Health Insurance Solution
Ninety-nine and forty-four one hundreds percent pure love
-Ronnie Millsap
Former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter was on Bill Moyers Journal a few weeks ago and cited a stunning statistic. When the Clinton's were debating health care in the early 1990's, 95 cents on every insurance premium dollar went to pay claims. Now it is slightly above 80%.
The technical term for what Potter cited is the medical loss ratio. When it is at 80%, it means one out of every five dollars that you are paying for insurance premiums is going towards health care.
The rest is going to insurance company profits.
I don't have a dog in the health insurance fight. I voted for President Obama and want to see Americans have coverage. I've been around the insurance business all my adult life but I stopped selling health insurance 20 years ago. I buy my own from another agent.
I don't really follow the nuances of how health care is priced and I don't claim to understand it.
This puts me in the same boat as most other Americans.
I don't think President Obama is connecting with the American people on the issue. It is complicated and complex. People who have health insurance are afraid of paying more for it. People without health insurance don't have money for high powered lobbyists and non-stop television commercials. People who are intellectually for the idea of universal coverage don't want to pay higher taxes.
It's a complicated problem but I am offering a simple solution.
1. Cap the medical loss ratio at 95%.
2. Make insurance companies cover everyone, no matter what the pre existing condition.
3. Help poor and middle income people buy coverage with a subsidy or tax credit.
My simple solution achieves several goals. It gives everyone an opportunity to be covered. Poor people have Medicaid. By subsidizing the middle class and working class, we will come close to getting everyone insured.
If health insurance carriers are forced to pay out 95% of what they take in, it seems that they are going to compete with each other by offering more treatments and better service.
The idea of a public option is for the government to compete with the big health insurance carriers and drive down costs.
I am seeing a campaign by Obama and Speaker Pelosi to denounce the health insurance company but I am not sure it is going to work. I'm not sure that people like insurance companies but getting them to march against them is an entirely different matter.
Right now, people are worried about losing their homes and their jobs. It's hard to get people focused in a time of economic chaos and high unemployment.
I've had my own angry, screaming battles with my health insurance carrier. It seems like everyone I've talked to has had a similar experience.
I just don't see them marching on Washington about it.
My plan (you can call it the McNay plan if it happens to catch on) is a compromise that everyone will like and everyone will hate.
The health insurance carriers will scream that they can't make a profit on a 95% medical loss ratio. However, property and casualty insurance carriers (the people who insure your car, home etc.) have a loss ratio close to 100%. They make their profits investing the premium. Health insurance carriers operate the same way.
Under my plan, they won't have a profit incentive to deny claims.
Insurance companies will scream about covering everyone with no pre existing conditions but since they have an extra 15% to 20% in claims money to work with, they ought to be able to make it happen.
The government subsidies will make sure everyone can afford coverage and the health insurance companies can't complain because ultimately the government subsidies are going to go back to them.
Insurance companies are only going to get 5% of the medical loss ratio but if we insure 41 million uninsured Americans, the insurance companies are going to get 5% more of much, much larger pie.
That ought to make their stockholders happy. It also will inspire other insurance companies to get into the health insurance business and capture premium for themselves.
That is the kind of competition they were looking for.
Implementing my idea makes it harder for President Obama's critics to attack it politically. Opponents can't argue that "government bureaucrats will be making your medical decisions" because it won't be government bureaucrats calling the shots.
It will be the same, private, health insurance, company bureaucrats who are making the decisions now.
I don't think that is better but it sure knocks a hole in the opposition's argument.
I want to see President Obama get some kind of health insurance program passed. I suspect the Republican senator who thinks its defeat could cost Obama's re election has a valid point.
Obama is spending a lot of political capital on this. I'm not sure it is catching on and seems to be getting away from him.
The president keeps wanting to lecture us but we would rather talk about the Harvard professor and the policeman having a beer.
My idea is so simple that I am sure there are many holes in it. I'm not an expert, just a guy with a lot of insurance industry designations behind his name. None of those designations make me a specialist in the health care debate but it's a different idea.
I'm open to hearing from those who don't agree and finding out why.
My idea works and is politically viable. It gets uninsured people covered and it will get better coverage for the rest of us. It will take away the incentive for insurance companies to gouge us on claims, in order to make the stockholders happy.
Its not a perfect solution but it's a ninety nine, forty-four one hundreds percent pure idea that we can talk about.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is one of the world's leading authorities in helping injured people and lottery winners deal with complex financial issues.
McNay is also an award winning syndicated financial columnist and Huffington Post contributor.
McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983. The company's primary office is in Richmond, Kentucky.
McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You When The Lottery.
You can write to Don at don@donmcnay.com or read his column at www.donmcnay.com.
You can reach him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/donmcnay and on Twitter at twitter.com/Donmcnay
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.
Ian Gurvitz: REPUBLICANS REVEAL OBAMA HEALTH PLAN SECRET PLOT TO TURN WHITE PEOPLE BLACK
As the arguments over health care rage on, key Senate Republicans opposing the President's plan are about to present a report leaked from the Beck Institute, which might just turn the battle into an all-out firefight. The report will reveal that the President's stated intention to provide all Americans with government-run health care is just a smoke-screen for a plot to darken the skin tone of white Americans, turning them Black.
The insidious plot involves putting a government option in place that will be so attractive to struggling Americans that millions of newly insured white patients will begin seeing doctors for the first time in years. Then, under the guise of performing standard diagnostic tests to assess the patient's current health, cadres of specially trained Jamaican nurses will pretend to take their blood but, instead, administer a skin-darkening agent known as Boehner225.
The process, referred to in the report as "Negrowing," will be gradual, and as it will commence during the summer, the slowly darkening skin tone will most likely be mistaken for a beach tan, so that people will not instantly panic. But as fall approaches, the patient's skin will continue to darken, as the effects become permanent. And irreversible.
A GOP spokesperson is urging all Americans to write their representatives, demanding they resist the government plan at all costs, stating: "Not only would this plot have a disastrous effect on the economy, particularly on the golfing, sailing, and car-racing industries, but with millions of white people having been turned black, the 2012 election would be a slam-dunk."
When reached for comment, a White House spokesperson categorically denied the allegations in the report, stating: "It is completely false. The goals of our plan are clear: to provide millions of uninsured Americans with affordable health care. And to kill old people."
Liberal Democrats threaten to reject House healthcare deal
Dozens say they'll vote against a plan that includes concessions to Blue Dogs. The dispute could jeopardize a long-held goal of progressives.After months of marching in line as senior Democrats worked with the White House to develop healthcare legislation, liberal lawmakers from solidly Democratic districts are threatening a revolt that could doom President Obama's bid to sign a major bill this year.
Crowley cites ‘frank’ talk with Obama, Gates
President Barack Obama sat down for a beer at the White House Thursday night with a top African-American professor and the policeman who arrested him earlier this month. They were joined by a previously unannounced guest, Vice President Joe Biden.Racial furor pauses for White House happy hour
Obama, a black Harvard professor and a white police officer have a 'friendly, thoughtful conversation' at what is known as the 'beer summit,' designed to put the Gates issue at rest.A national furor over race relations paused today as President Obama, in a shady spot on the White House lawn near the Rose Garden, sat down for beers with a black Harvard professor and the white police officer who arrested him two weeks ago.