At a Tea Party protest in Las Vegas, Joe Heck, a Republican running for Congress, blamed both the Democratic and Republican Parties for moving the country toward “socialistic tyranny.” [New York Times]

The foregoing paragraph is an excerpt from an article in today’s New York Times by David Barstow.

Barstow portrays a bewildering array of political groups around the nation forming and struggling to find a way to thwart what they perceive as a governmental threat to their independence, liberty and freedom.

All kinds of groups are mentioned. The Tea Party, John Birch Society, Oath Keepers, Friends for Liberty, Defenders of Liberty

Glenn Beck gets prominent mention throughout the article, along with Ayn Rand and George Orwell, and Sarah Palin.

There is talk of eliminating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Debates about secession, tax boycotts, nullification of federal laws, forming citizen militias.

“It is a sprawling rebellion” writes Barstow, “a narrative of impending tyranny.”

Lots of talk about patriotism, the Constitution, and the Federal Reserve.

A popular T-shirt at Tea Party rallies reads, “Proud Right-Wing Extremist.”

There is fear among right wing extremists of a “cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States.”

Far too much to in the article to summarize here. You are best advised to go read the coverage in the New York Times.

So what does any of this have to do with Pahrump and Nye County? There is evidence of the existence of some of these groups right here in River City, that’s what.

Wendell Potter, former CIGNA executive wrote yesterday,

There are so many problems with the health care reform bill proposed by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, it is little wonder that members of his committee have proposed more than 500 amendments to fix it. Unfortunately, some of the worst amendments that would make the bill even more of a gift to the health insurance industry are being offered by Republicans. If there is a God in heaven, they will not be adopted. But many other amendments are vital, including those that will make this key bill more like the better bills that have been reported out of four other Congressional committees. All of those bills call for the creation of a public insurance option, which is an absolutely critical element of reform. Without it, all of us who are not eligible for an existing government-run program, like the Medicare and VA programs, will be forced to buy coverage from the private insurance industry, which is dominated by a cartel of huge for-profit companies.

The adoption of an amendment to create a strong public option, supported by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and many others on the committee, is certainly job one. But there are many additional fixes that are necessary, including other amendments being offered by Senator Rockefeller. They are so important I have sent a letter to Senator Baucus and the other members of the committee urging them to adopt the Rockefeller amendments that will require private insurance companies to be more honest and transparent in their dealings with consumers and more accountable to federal and state governments that must regulate them. As I note in the letter, without those amendments, insurance companies will be able to continue their most discriminatory practices without either transparency or real accountability. Here is my letter:

September 23, 2009

The Honorable Max Baucus
Committee on Finance
United States Senate
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-6200

Dear Chairman Baucus:

As a former health insurance company executive, I am very concerned about the lack of transparency and accountability in the health insurance industry. That is why I urge you to incorporate Senator Rockefeller’s Amendments #C12 and #C13 into the America’s Healthy Future Act (AHFA), in particular with regard to the need for airtight regulations to protect consumer interests.

As proposed, AHFA will allow insurers to continue many of their most discriminatory practices without either transparency or real accountability: cost-shifting to their most vulnerable members through benefit designs that serve the needs of Wall Street; and rationing of care based on arbitrary opinions about what care is needed. In addition, there is no accountability for insurance companies to provide affordable and comprehensive health care coverage. A requirement that everyone buy health insurance accompanied by subsidies for people with low incomes does not ensure that Americans will have affordable care. The explosive cost growth in Massachusetts after health care reform is a case in point. And, AHFA has no mechanisms to enforce the insurance regulations that are included.

In addition, AHFA designates the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to write key regulations. This is of great concern to me because this proposal delegates to the NAIC, a private organization, with rule-making authority that is generally reserved for an agency of the federal government. Any institution given the authority to define the rules that will determine health insurance coverage for millions of Americans must be completely independent of the insurance industry and have a demonstrated record of putting the concerns of consumers first. The institution must also have the will and the resources to carry out the rulemaking process in a transparent and unbiased manner, with opportunity for input from all interested parties at each stage of the process. Based on its traditional manner of conducting business, the NAIC fails to meet any of these standards. The NAIC does not operate independently of the insurance industry. In fact, the NAIC is a private corporation, funded, in large part, by the insurance industry itself. Without industry dollars, the NAIC would not operate as it does today. In addition, eight of the last 10 NAIC presidents, as well as numerous commissioners, have gone directly from their posts to industry positions, creating the distinct impression that leadership positions at NAIC are mere stepping stones to more lucrative careers in the insurance industry.

For all these reasons, as well as my inside knowledge of how easily insurance companies circumvent existing regulations, I support Senator Rockefeller’s Amendments #C12 and #C13 to AHFA, which will:

*Create a grant program for state insurance departments to help them better enforce market rules and protect consumers.

*Establish a federal role for private health insurance oversight and provide resources for the Department of Health and Human Services to hire expert staff to carry out these functions and coordinate with state regulators.

* Require health insurance plans to disclose clear, accurate, and timely information on their policies and practices to ensure that they do not circumvent new federal health insurance regulations.

* Add needed transparency requirements such as: establishing fair grievance and appeals procedures by health insurers; clarifying information for health professionals and freeing up time for patients by establishing transparency standards relating to reimbursement arrangements between health plans and providers; and requiring advance notice of plan changes so consumers get what they pay.

*Establish America’s Health Insurance Trust, a nonprofit, independent, consumer-driven organization that will evaluate and give ratings to all health insurance products offered through the National Health Insurance Exchange. Annual insurance product ratings will be based on factors such as affordability, adequacy, transparency, consumer satisfaction, provider satisfaction, and quality.

* Ensure that ombudsman offices in each state are open to consumers at all stages of the appeal process to allow for early intervention and increase the likelihood of successful appeals.

Health insurance reform requires that we not only create strong new consumer protections. It also requires that those rules be effectively enforced. American families and businesses must have health insurance that is accountable to them, not to Wall Street.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Wendell Potter, Senior Fellow on Health Care, Center for Media and Democracy

Cc: All Members of the Senate Finance Committee

[Source: Center for Media and Democracy]

Members of the Senate Finance Committee, yesterday, September 29, 2009  rejected Senator Rockefeller’s proposed amendment to the America’s Healthy Future Act even though each of them had Potter’s letter dated  September 23, 2009. Wonder if any of them even read his letter.

Millions of Medicare patients would be spared monthly premium increases next year under a bill passed by the House Thursday.

The House voted 406 to 18 to eliminate all premium increases for Medicare Part B, which provides coverage for doctor’s visits. The bill now goes to the Senate, where the Finance Committee is expected to take it up soon, though no hearings were scheduled.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, in a rare break with fellow Democrats, voted against the measure, saying it would mainly help wealthy Medicare recipients.

[Source: Minneapolis StarTribune]

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Thursday urged some state insurance commissioners to investigate how the costs of insurers’ lobbying to defeat health-insurance reform are affecting premiums.

“We believe that health insurance providers’ lobbying expenditures have led to excessive rate hikes,” Trumka wrote to regulators in Connecticut, Indiana, New York and Pennsylvania. Laws in those states require insurance regulators to approve rate changes. Two of the four top insurance companies, WellPoint Inc. (WLP) and Cigna Corp. (CI), are based in Indiana and Pennsylvania, respectively.

The AFL-CIO leader also pointed to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which has requested a rate hike of up to 30% in Connecticut while spending more than $9.5 million on lobbying, and UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), which recently proposed a premium increase for its Medicare supplemental insurance while spending more than $2.6 million on lobbying in the first half of 2009.

In addition, Trumka asked regulators to investigate allegations that UnitedHealth and Anthem/WellPoint forced employees to attend meetings intended to pressure them into helping their employers oppose pending health insurance reform legislation.

According to the AFL-CIO – which is supporting the Obama administration’s efforts – premiums for employer-based health insurance more than doubled in the past decade while the health-care industry spent more than $3.5 billion on lobbying.

The health-care industry is the biggest-spending lobbying force in Washington. In the second quarter, health-care players spent $133 million pressing their interests, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Labor unions and others with a stake in the health-care debate also are lobbying heavily

Insurance companies have been lobbying Congress to defeat the inclusion in health-care reform bills of a “public option” that would provide health insurance at lower costs than is now available. Groups of all stripes are blitzing lawmakers to shape a trillion-dollar health-care overhaul that would reach into every business and home in the country.

If the insurance industry gets the rate increase that would indicate the premium payers will be offsetting the lobbying costs of the health insurance industry. They sure don’t want to pay for the lobbying costs out of their profits.

I’ve read about this deal before but don’t fully understand it or its implications in health care/insurance reform. But it has cropped up again, so I’m going to spend some time in trying to grasp what it is and what it means. It references “secret” deals between the White House (Obama administration), Senator Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee and PhRMA (the drug industry). So here goes, maybe some of you out there can help shed some light on what all this is. I’ve added some hyperlinks to the following article to aid in understanding something about the players in all this.

In a stunning moment during the Senate Finance Committee markup Sen. Tom Carper [Wikipedia] [VoteSmart] [OpenSecrets] defended a secret deal that the White House, Baucus, and PhRMA had reached. The White House has long denied the deal. Carper publicly acknowledges that part of the deal was that PhRMA would run millions of dollars worth of campaign ads in support of health care reform.

[Read more →]

by Anthony D. Weiner [VoteSmart] [OpenSecrets] a Democrat representing New York’s 9th Congressional District in today’s Huffington Post

As President Obama prepares to address the nation about his vision for health care reform, we should not overlook the last, best truly transformative change to our health care system: Medicare. We have been staring so intently at the lessons of 1993 that we may have forgotten the universal rule of successful lawmaking: “keep it simple.”

During the eleven town hall meetings I’ve held around my district, I’ve had some direct experience with the anxiety this debate has produced. Much of the fear comes from two groups: those who have Medicare and don’t want it changed and those who have never had a government-run reimbursement system like Medicare and are worried about the impact it will have on their quality of care.

In both cases, a calm, reasoned and vigorous defense of the American single-payer plan is just what the doctor ordered.

The truth is that the United States already uses single-payer systems to cover over 47% of all medical bills through Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Defense and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

[Read more →]

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is a real jerk. Thinking people in Iowa should get rid of him in their next election and elect someone who has some common sense.

In reality, the so-called ‘death panel provision,’ Section 1233 of the House Tri Committee bill, would allow Medicare to reimburse providers for consulting with patients about end-of-life issues; nothing in the section mandates a consultation. In fact, the provision builds on President Bush’s efforts to expand Medicare coverage to “counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options” for terminally ill patients. In 2003, Grassley voted in favor of the provision as part of Bush’s Medicare drug bill. [Think Progress]

Here are some more of Grassley’s jewels:

Grassley’s Fearmongering:

- Government Will Pull Plug On Grandma: “There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life, And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear….We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.” [8/12/2009]

- Uses Kennedy’s Brain Tumor To Spread Fear Of Rationing: “I’ve been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he’s 77 years old — would not be treated the way it’s treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age.” [8/5/2009]

- Reform Will Place Bureaucrats In Charge: “PTL BluDogs Keep barkin Pelosie bill is Govt takeovr of healthCare Breaks Obama promise”keep what u hv” Puts Wash Burocrats in chrg MUSTSTOP.” [@ChurckGrassley, 7/24/2009]

Grassley Hung Up On Process, Not Substance:

- Reform Must Pass With 80 Votes: “It ought to be from 80 people in the center of the Senate, I would think.” [7/22/2009]

- Will Only Vote For Reform With Four Other Republicans: “I’m negotiating for Republicans and if I can’t negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I’m not a very good representative of my party.” [8/17/2009]

- Bipartisanship Means ‘No Public Option’: Asked “what needs to be in” a health care reform bill “for it to be bipartisan,” Grassley declared, “We need to make sure that there’s no public option.” [6/24/2009]

- Loses Patience With Democrats: Grassley told National Review Online that “he’s losing patience with Democrats, who earlier this week signaled that they were ready to abandon hopes for a compromise.” “I won’t walk away,” Grassley said, “but if I’m pushed away, I’ll be on the Senate floor trying to kill bad amendments and get good amendments adopted.” [8/19/2009]

- Recommends Scaling Back Bill As ‘Natural Outcome’ Of Town Halls: Grassley told the Washington Post that the Finance Committee group is still discussing a “comprehensive” plan, but revisiting that approach would be “a natural outcome of what people may be getting from the town hall meetings.” [8/20/2009]

- Claims He Hasn’t Said Anything New During August Recess: Asked if there is hope for a bipartisan deal, Grassley said “I haven’t said anything new since we adjourned for the summer break that I’ve been saying for the last three months. So for the White House to draw any conclusions other than what I’ve told the president right to his face…” [8/20/2009]

- Claims He Won’t Vote For ‘Imperfect’ Health Care Bill: “Now is the time to do this right or not do it.”…”We need to slow down and do a little less,” Mr. Grassley told another town-hall gathering in Pocahontas, Iowa, Monday afternoon. “We need to fix what’s broken and leave alone what’s working well.” In an interview, he vowed not to vote for an “imperfect bill” that includes a public option or gives the government too much control over end-of-life issues. [WSJ, 8/25/2009]

- Deficit Projections Require Smaller Reform Package: Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, one of three Senate Republicans negotiating on health care, said the soaring federal budget deficit “puts a stake in the heart” of $1 trillion measures being debated in Congress….“It’s going to have a big impact on whether I’ll even support something,” he said at a town-hall meeting yesterday in Le Mars, Iowa….Still, he said, a forecast by the Congressional Budget Office that deficits between 2010 and 2019 will total $7.1 trillion calls for a more-limited measure than the $900 billion bill the bipartisan group was discussing last month. “We’re going to be looking at smaller numbers,” he said. The deficit projection also dooms $1 trillion measures already moving through the House and approved by the Senate health committee, Grassley said. [Bloomberg, 8/27/2009]

- Not Sure If Senate Finance Committee Can Reach A Deal: Asked whether he thought the six Democratic and Republican negotiators on the committee would be able to cut a deal when Congress returns from its summer recess next month, Grassley replied: “If you asked me that on Aug. 6, I would have said yes, I think so, September. But you’re asking me on Aug. 27 and you’ve got the impact of democracy in America. Everybody’s showing up at town meetings.” [Kaiser Health News, 8/28/2009]

Grassley, A Proud Obstructionist:

- Proud To Obstruct Health Reform: “I take pride with being an obstructionist,” he said, if that means scuttling a public option that could lead to a single-payer system. [7/6/2009]

- Nonsensically Attacking Obama: “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delvr on health care’ When you are “hammer” u think everything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.” [@ChuckGrassley, 6/7/2009]

- Tells Constituents To Work For Government: Asked during a town hall — “Okay, so how come I can’t have the same thing you have?” Grassley said, “You can. Just go work for the federal government.” [7/3/2009]

- Lying Is ‘The Only Way’ To Get Attention: Asked what he thought of falsehoods spread about comparative effectiveness research and electronic medical records, Grassley replied “I think they ought to hype them right now because people’s attention needs to be brought to it, and that’s the only way you’re going to get their attention.” [3/19/2009]

- Sends Fundraiser To Defeat ObamaCare: “I’m sure you’ve been following this issue closely. If the legislation sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Chairman Ted Kennedy in the Senate is passed it would be a pathway to a government takeover of the health care system. lt would turn over control of your health care decisions to a federal bureaucrat … and take it away from you and your personal physician. It would mean government rationing in the name of cost controls. [Letter, 8/09] [Think Progress]

Read a lot more about Grassley on Wikipedia. He has been a senator since 1981! Makes one wonder about the sense of the Iowa people in electing him so many times. Maybe they need their heads examined. I notice he is also a member of The Family, along with our John Ensign.

Grassley had previously supported covering end-of-life counseling, having voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which stated: “The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary’s need for pain and symptom management, including the individual’s need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.”

Grassley admitted in an August 2009 Washington Post interview that he bases his governing decisions upon the views of whichever group among his constituents yells the loudest.^{[16] [Wikipedia]}

^{Grassley is a political hack. Take a look at his record on VoteSmart.}

^{While you’re at it see where he is getting his campaign contributions from on OpenSecrets. He’s a real piece of work.}

There are so many misleading, false and deceptive practices involved in the current “debate” or more aptly “argument” about health insurance reform it is easy to get totally lost.

So many people are allowing their emotions to get in the way of making sound judgments about whether or not to reform the medical care system in the United States it is getting downright dangerous. The following, from FactCheck.org, analyzes one more.

Summary

The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little.

• The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats “threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans.” That’s certainly possible. Ratcheting down payments to the private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage would likely cause them to reduce benefits or even withdraw from the market. That might force an unknown number of beneficiaries to find new plans or go back to the traditional system, which still covers 78 percent of the Medicare population.
  (Update, Aug. 31: At least 3 million of the more than 10 million Medicare Advantage beneficiaries would likely go back to traditional Medicare, one independent expert says.)
• Another new wrinkle in the RNC’s “Bill of Rights” is a claim that Democrats have proposed raising TRICARE insurance costs for retired military and their families. This one is false. It was actually the Bush administration that most recently proposed changes in TRICARE, which the hospital industry said would cost hospitals $458 million in its first year.

The RNC “Bill of Rights” document also recycles claims that Democrats are proposing $500 billion in Medicare cuts without mentioning that much of that is offset by proposed Medicare increases. It falsely says that a comparative effectiveness research panel set up earlier this year could limit care based on a patient’s age, when in fact the law expressly prohibits the council from issuing such mandates. And the RNC implies, wrongly, that seniors who meet with their doctors to discuss end-of-life care could have their treatment cut off involuntarily. In fact, these discussions would be voluntary and any directives limiting treatment would have to come from the patient.

[Read more →]

Back in 2003 the Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP) the following summary and conclusion in their article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The United States spends more than twice as much on health care as the average of other developed nations, all of which boast universal coverage. Yet more than 41 million Americans have no health insurance. Many more are underinsured. Confronted by the rising costs and capabilities of modern medicine, other nations have chosen national health insurance (NHI). The United States alone treats health care as a commodity distributed according to the ability to pay, rather than as a social service to be distributed according to medical need. In this market-driven system, insurers and providers compete not so much by increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding unprofitable patients and shifting costs back to patients or to other payers. This creates the paradox of a health care system based on avoiding the sick. It generates huge administrative costs that, along with profits, divert resources from clinical care to the demands of business. In addition, burgeoning satellite businesses, such as consulting firms and marketing companies, consume an increasing fraction of the health care dollar. We endorse a fundamental change in US health care—the creation of an NHI program. Such a program, which in essence would be an expanded and improved version of traditional Medicare, would cover every American for all necessary medical care. An NHI program would save at least $200 billion annually (more than enough to cover all of the uninsured) by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry and reducing spending for marketing and other satellite services. Physicians and hospitals would be freed from the concomitant burdens and expenses of paperwork created by having to deal with multiple insurers with different rules, often designed to avoid payment. National health insurance would make it possible to set and enforce overall spending limits for the health care system, slowing cost growth over the long run. An NHI program is the only affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage.

Health care reform is again near the top of the political agenda. Health care costs have turned sharply upward. The number of Americans without insurance or with inadequate coverage rose even in the boom years of the 1990s. Medicare and Medicaid are threatened by ill-conceived reform schemes, and middle-class voters are very concerned about the abuses of managed care. Other wealthy countries manage to provide universal health care at half the cost we pay. Their problems stem mainly from inadequate funding, not the structure of their systems. In contrast, the problems in the United States are systemic. Incremental changes cannot solve them; further reliance on market-based strategies will exacerbate them. What needs to be changed is the system itself.

[Read more →]

Yesterday, August 24, the conservatives and progressives of Pahrump met outside the Town Office of Pahrump while the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met inside with Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo.

I was told that the conservative demonstrators outnumbered the progressives 3-1.

I didn’t see see any firearms nor fights. I could hear some loud arguing going on, but other than that there was no breach of the peace observed. I saw no cops. The two groups kept a respectable separation from each other.

The conservative group obviously doesn’t like Harry Reid or healthcare reform.

[Read more →]