Bill Moyers Journal on health care reform tonight

[ipaint]

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with two leading healthcare journalists, Trudy Lieberman and Marcia Angell, M.D., seeking their perspectives on the current health reform debate in Washington. Lieberman and Angell each addressed whether the “public option” proposed by President Obama would actually serve to insure all Americans and who in the private health industry stands to benefit from the reforms under discussion.

“What has essentially advocated is throwing more money into the current system. He's treating the symptom and he's not treating the underlying cause of our problem. Our problem is that we spend two and a half times as much per person on health care as the average of other advanced countries, and we don't get our money's worth. So now he says, ‘Okay, this is a terribly inefficient, wasteful system. Let's throw some money into it...’ Obama said in his press conference the worst thing we can do is nothing, the most costly thing we can do is nothing. I disagree with that – you can throw more money into this system and make it even more costly... I think we have to start all over on this, I really do. I think we have to go for a single payer system.”

Marcia Angell, M.D.


“From my vantage point, I don't see that the solutions for controlling costs, that will really control costs the way other countries do, are really in place... We hear about preventive care as saving costs, because intuitively it sounds like it's going to work, but the academic studies show that more preventive care actually raises costs. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing to do, but it's not a good cost saver in the system... has been vague right from the very beginning, we have not known exactly what the Obama health plan has been... I see an administration that is trying to keep this playbook going as long as possible, and to commit to as little as possible until the eleventh hour. By then, it’s going to be too late for the American people to know what’s going to await them... As a journalist, that troubles me.”

Trudy Lieberman


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07242009/profile.html
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/07/diagnosing_proposals_for_healt.html

I believe transcripts and video go up over the weekend.

[cornermouse]

1. k & r

[SharonAnn]

2. Just saw it here and it was excellent, as usual. Also, an update on the right-wing

violence (abortion clinics, doctors, etc.) with a focus on the shooting last summer at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN.

Love Friday nights with first David Brancaccio with NOW and then the ultimate treat - Bill Moyers.

[Catshrink]

9. Two of the few journalists left.

Sadly. :cry:

[KoKo]

3. Without a "Single Payer" plan...the whole thing might end up

being a "compromised mess."

Taking Single Payer off the table without a vote...meant "tinkering." And, given the way the Repugs still rule the roost in DC...I fear for what will come out in the end for our health care.

I wish it hadn't ended up like this...

[JimWis]

4. I have been somewhat on the fence between a good public

option and single payer. What I heard tonight was interesting. It also enforced my feelings lately about the whole big mess. Several versions coming out of congress, trying to figure out how to pay for it all, and it will cost additional bucks which we know will end up in private insurance coffers. I am beginning to think we just start over and go single payer. It would be the simple way and cheapest.

[ipaint]

5. I like Marcia Angell suggestion

Announcing the gradual phasing of medicare for all at the same time as phasing out for profit insurance. Strengthen medicare and begin lowering the age eligible to 55, then 45, then 35....

[JimWis]

7. Yes - I too liked that idea.

[dflprincess]

8. That would be perfect

and open it right away to those deemed "uninsurable" by the crooks Obama & Congress want to "keep honest" at our expense.

[ipaint]

10. At the same time as medicare is strengthened by more and more enrollees

the insurance companies would be weakened and we would really start to see costs reigned in. We would also be able to gradually reduce the prices we are paying to for profit hospitals, pharma, etc. which are also a huge drain on the system today.
With out cost containment any reform plan that emerges is doomed to fail. Another money pit just like the banks.

[JimWis]

11. I like the ideas I am seeing posted here. We could first go to

55, then pick up folks unable to get insurance. If they were under 55, all they would need to be eligible would be a denial letter from private insurance or a quote that is over a certain percentage of their income. Sort of like our Wisconsin risk share public plan is now. I think we got a plan building here.

[madfloridian]

22. When Dean says basically the same thing he gets heckled.

"We offer efficient, government run healthcare already for veterans and the elderly. We should expand this to everyone."

He has often said this, yet he is being vilified. That is from Oregon this week.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x342479

[ipaint]

25. Once again

He backs a single payer (gov.), medicare style plan and then promotes obamas public option. Since obama has been silent on any detail of what his public option actually is all people have to go by is what congress is producing. The public options emerging are built to fail miserably.

So is dean backing the plans out of congress, a mysterious public option he says our centrist president wants or single payer/medicare which is not by definition a public option because neither competes with for profit private insurance, as a public option would.

My conclusion is he is trying to shift the definition of single payer to the right so people equate single payer with whatever public option emerges. That's probably why he gets heckled by folks who know the difference.

And if a couple hecklers means he's being vilified then he either needs to grow a thicker skin or tell the truth. A public option that competes with a variety of for profit insurance options is not single payer or medicare.

[madfloridian]

26. You seek your perfection. You have a scapegoat.

And that is a crying shame.

Your conclusion only fits with a very narrow view of the overall picture.

Everyone else is wrong. See anything wrong with that picture? I do.

[abumbyanyothername]

6. I wish someone would organize a single payer march

Why can't we just storm the mall in DC to welcome back Congress and let them know what we want?

I am not a good motivator of mass movements but there are plenty around here who are.

Any DFA people on board?

[mullard12ax7]

12. Watched it, another informative show

A guest said that single payer is the only possible way our country can go without bankrupting itself and she is absolutely correct.

[cornermouse]

13. kicking again this morning because people really need to see it

and also adding the NOW had an excellent show on the financial system which can be seen here.

http://www.pbs.org/now/

[clear eye]

14. Nice to get some validation.

I start a thread saying basically the same thing in a little more detail and immediately go into <0 territory. Nice to see that the imprimatur of the honorable Bill Moyers allows people to listen to reason. Similar situations have happened to me before on DU. In another case it was an OP I wrote expressing an opinion and got a negative response a half-year before David Swanson got a thumbs up on his piece making the same point. That time I was probably saying something people were not ready to hear because it hadn't yet played out sufficiently to convince them.

About the vague health plan--It's important to acknowledge serious, even fatal flaws in what's being proposed, because when it inevitably causes more hardship than it alleviates, we don't want it to be used successfully to indict all government healthcare financing plans, especially not single-payer.

Anyhow, I'm going to accept my role as a DU Cassandra, continue posting inconvenient truths, and not pay attention to how they are scored. Anyone who wants to read my threads before they disappear may have to subscribe to my Journal via "buddy".

[cornermouse]

15. Don't feel bad.

It's happened to me before on the Moyer's posts as well. I'm sorry, I didn't see your post or I would have kicked it.

Seemingly, there are a lot of people on DU who don't see Moyers as a valuable resource. That's a pretty sad state of affairs for a democratic website.

[clear eye]

16. Thanks for the support, but

my post was not about the Moyers show, but covered the same subject matter w/ the same viewpoint as last night's Bill Moyers. I hope you would have thought it was worthwhile, too.

I think you can rest assured that Moyers is highly respected here. Perhaps you posted at a low traffic hour?

Anyhow, keep giving us the heads up on Moyers. We appreciate it.

[ipaint]

20. I read your thread

I missed it when you first posted it. I agree with your points in it and I think this dangling of a couple carrots in peoples faces and pretending it is reform is stopping them from taking a good hard look at the reality of what can happen.

If all we are getting is a stop to denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or recision for an undisclosed doctor visit for a cold. Pass a law and deal with it.

Shackling the population by law into buying an overpriced product from a for profit industry while dumping the sickest into a public option which is doomed before it starts is insane.
The unintended consequences of this type of behind closed doors, bought and paid for legislation is frightening.

We have absolutely no basis to trust any member of the for profit health care industry. None. In fact their unnecessary death toll has earned them the right to have absolutely nothing to do with the health care of americans ever again.

If the for profit industry is involved it will get worse.

[clear eye]

24. "Fraid so.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone in seeing real trouble ahead in this bill.

[clear eye]

17. Looking forward to catching it on Sunday. n/t

[marmar]

18. Yep. For whatever reason the Detroit PBS station doesn't air it until Sunday either.

n/t

[ipaint]

19. The show is up online- don't miss it.

BILL MOYERS: Do you believe the health care industry when it tells President Obama that "we will voluntarily cut costs"?

MARCIA ANGELL: No. I mean, these are investor owned businesses. If they behave like charities, heads would roll in the executive suites. They are there to maximize profits. And that's exactly what they do.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: What's happened now is that the industries have gotten pretty much what they want out of the bills that are going forward.

And so, they need to build public support. They need to make everybody in the public realize that they actually are wearing white hats in this one. But behind the scenes, they are lobbying ferociously against the public plan, against cuts in doctors fees, against all kinds of things that they don't want. And for that they're using a different sort of lobbying tactic. All of these are communications or lobbying strategies that they know how to do and they are very excellent at doing them.

MARCIA ANGELL: It's clear that they can turn it to their advantage.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: Right.

MARCIA ANGELL: That nobody is really trying to break their-- except the single payer people -- their death grip on the system. And here you have hundreds of for profit insurance companies that maximize their income by denying care to the people who need it most. And that's the insurance system. That's how we pay for health care.

But you also have to look at how we deliver health care. And we deliver that, primarily or largely, in for-profit facilities -- businesses, hospitals -- whose interest is in delivering only profitable care. So, we have a system that's through and through, in both the payment system and the delivery system, is oriented toward profits. Neither the Senate nor the House is doing anything to change that.

BILL MOYERS: The President says there will be a public option in my bill that will compete with the private insurance. To bring the cost down.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: That's--

BILL MOYERS: That's what he said.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: That's what he says. Again, we get back to the detail question and the particulars, which are so absent in this whole discussion. We don't know what a public plan will look like. And even if there's going to be a public plan. The insurers don't want it. It's not clear that the doctors want it. And the pharmaceutical companies don't want it.

So my question is, are they working behind the scenes to make sure this doesn't happen? My guess is-- my answer is, they probably are.

MARCIA ANGELL: A lot is said about how the public wants to cling to what it has. What I'm finding is something that confirms the polls that have been done. Showing that something like two-thirds of the public would favor a Canadian style or a Medicare for all style single payer system.

The same is true of physicians, now. About 60 percent of physicians favor Medicare for all, or a single payer system. So, what is against it? The pharmaceutical and the insurance industries are the biggest lobbies in Washington. They spend millions and millions on influential members of Congress. And the amount that they are spending now to the Chairman of the relevant health committees has increased enormously in the past few months.

Video and transcript here:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07242009/watch.html

[quiller4]

21. I watched the show and was really disappointed. I enjoyed

the second part of his show and wished that it had been longer. Listening to Lieberman and Angell was a waste of time.

[malaise]

23. Excellent program

K & R