Specifically non-specific

[Stinky The Clown]

That is neither a positive nor a negative. It simply is.

It describes this whole health care "debate", up to and including the speech given by President Obama to a joint session of the Congress.

Even after last night, there are no specifics. The right wing crazies will still see undocumented residents getting free, full coverage. The left wing crazies will still speak of how it feels, after "working their asses off", to get rolled over by a bus.

Most everyone who posts here on DU listened to that speech last night. There was so much interest in discussing it that this site went to Defcon 2 for a while.

And even in view of that, I will bet most anything that many of us heard what we wanted to hear or what we predicted, or what fits our world view, or what helps advance the position we've adopted in the larger debate. There can be any number of meanings associated with "public option" or "co-op" or "insurance exchange" or "costs" or any of the hundreds of terms bandied about by every talking head or typing hand with even a passing interest in "health care reform". Even the term "health care reform" is without a commonly shared definition. Is "health insurance reform" the same as "health care reform"? Yes and no, actually; it depends on who is pitching and who is catching at any given point in time.

I am pretty confident that President Obama will be working harder and more directly on all this than he has thus far. And I am confident that it will work out in a way that has all of us better than we were before.

But (there's a word we all dread) please don't say he laid it all out or that he stuck a knife in your back. He did neither. He gave a speech He laid out some vague goals that all sound pretty good - or not so good.

I'm happy to discuss this intelligently. Or to be ignored for having said it.

But don't insult me by saying I must not have heard the speech or that I'm a cheerleader and sycophant or that I'm a whiner or a concern troll.

Until there is an actual bill with actual specifics and an actual cost and actual ways that this will all be .... well .... actualized, we are all left to do what we do best:

Speculate and try to fill in the many (but now maybe fewer) blanks.

[rug]

1. I generally agree.

[scheming daemons]

2. He put HCR back on the tracks... and the final 10 minutes of the speech were historic in this way:

It was the first time in 70 years that a President so forcefully defended the concept of liberalism in that chamber..

[lapfog_1]

6. Please, do not call this HCR. It is not, Not even President Obama says that anymore.

It's health INSURANCE reform. That is all.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. The defense of LIberalism was the best part of the speech, in my view.

The tone, the topic and the invocation of The Liberal Lion.

[lapfog_1]

16. Yes, that was nice.

Now, what about the health INSURANCE reform plan? (It's not health care reform).

[lapfog_1]

3. Let me ask you a question...

Did you hear him say that he is in favor of mandated insurance?

If you did, did you hear him couple that with a robust public option? (by whatever term he might have used)

If not, do you think that the result (if written up as legislation and passed into law) is a good thing?

[Stinky The Clown]

8. You're doing what we all do .....

..... you're imputing definition where none was proffered.

What you conclude is *a* logical end, but not the only one.

[lapfog_1]

15. So tell me what you HEARD him say.

And there ARE transcripts available.

You are telling me I didn't hear what I'm pretty sure that I really DID hear. And I have the transcripts to prove it.

What did YOU hear?

[Stinky The Clown]

17. We heard the same words

My point was ...... we don't each give those same words the same meaning. There are no concrete terms yet. We have no standard set of definitions for what these ever changing phrases actually mean.

By way of example, we have no common understanding of what the term "reform" means in the context of this current debate.

[lapfog_1]

19. Again, taking Presidident Obama at his word

for the last, say 2 months... he never says "health care reform". Now he says "health care INSURANCE reform".

Check it out.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. I know. I have often compained about that.

Read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6516759

[Eric J in MN]

4. Shortly after the speech, I was undecided...

...about whether I liked it or not, because I didn't know what the "demonstration projects" for tort reform were about.

After finding it means that the Obama Administration will probably be urging states to enact tort reform, I decided that I don't like the speech.

Under tort reform, there are no limits on compensation for economic losses. Rich people injured by malpractice can collect millions of dolars they might have earned.

But there are limits on compensation for pain-and-suffering. Ordinary people get little compensation, even when facing a lot of pain-and-suffering for the rest of their lives.

[T Wolf]

12. Yes. Tort "reform" is just another terms for screwing the un-wealthy. It is not needed.

Malpractice costs are relatively small in the total health"care" budget.

[lapfog_1]

18. Yet another give-away to the AMA and the repukes.

It's not needed, and it (malpractice insurance) could even be a (horrors) government run insurance plan. And if some doctor or other is found to be negligent, we need more aggressive action to keep them from practicing medicine. Docs protest their own. We can't leave it to the AMA or even state or hospital boards to get rid of bad doctors. We've been relying on that for decades now and it doesn't work.

However, it that is what we give up (the right to sue for millions) in order to get Medicare for all, fine. But we have to add it in to get what was outlined last night? Yuck.

[lamp_shade]

5. Ahhhh... refreshing... an adult voice of reason. Thanks, Stinky.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. We know a great deal about what "reform" means in Washington.

From both sides, I see far too much garment rending about misconceptions that exist in the public.

"Death panels are going to force abortions on illegal immigrants!"
"Blackwater mercenaries are going to force our healthy young maidens to abandon their homes to pay for bankrupting private insurance they don't need!... until they do, at which time the insurance company will yank their coverage and dou... no, ten-duple their premiums!"

[branders seine]

10. Only a fascist communist could feel that way

;-)

[T Wolf]

11. One mistake in trying to tackle this incredibly complex issue, IMO, has been to keep it

complicated for all to follow.

Everyone loves or hates the plan because they can see in it, in much the same fashion as you say we saw the speech, whatever we want to.

That complexity has made it easy to generate pockets of resistance to any and all aspects, so that not much can really be accomplished.

Instead, imagine if Obama and the Dems had come out with a simple, easy-to-understand plan of..

1) single-payer (government) to handle the money

2) all decisions are between the patient and physician

3) all care is covered (i.e., approved and paid for)

4) taxes will cover the costs

That's all. The details could be worked out (e.g., what procedures are approved). But the "selling" of the plan would not be subject to so much interpretation and distortion.

I do not think the resistance from the reich-wingers would be any greater than it is now. Certainly, the support from the left would be greater and less conditional.

But the idea of health care as a moral imperative could be more easily sold without getting bogged down in the details that no one knows.

They blew this by their ineptitude/complicity with the insurance industry. A golden opportunity has been mishandled, maybe irretrievably lost.

What might have been...

[Stinky The Clown]

13. This post was not about the speech.

The opening of this post refers to the entire "debate" .... up to and including the speech. But it was *not* just about the speech.

Although some will it see it that way, feel as if I am dissing their idol, and miss the entire point.

[truth2power]

14. Thank you, Stinky, for having the courage to speak out on this...

I watched the speech last night, and I came away with the same feeling I had when I heard Obama speak during the Primaries. At that time I had a discussion with a co-worker, a strong supporter of Obama. What I told my co-worker was, "He gives all-purpose speeches."

If I had the time to take a transcript of the speech and go thru it line by line, annotating as I go, I think I would come to the same conclusion.

I can't point to anything at this time to support my assessment. Therefore, I will offer this for what it's worth, an opinion.

We need single-payer, universal health CARE. The US Govt. gave away billions of our, and our children's money to financial institutions, and it was all said and done in a few days. Yet health INSURANCE for all is going to take years. Baloney! And people are going to continue to die while Congress dithers.

It made me sick to my stomach last night to see the Repukes sitting on their hands while Obama soldiered on, trying to play Mr. Nice-Guy. Apparently he didn't listen to Bill Moyers' commentary last week, easily resourced on the internet for those who missed it.

This will all come to nothing, and the insurance companies will prosper.


P.S. One of my Canadian relatives died about 6 years ago, after a long and devastating battle with lung cancer (Asbestiosis). He had the best treatment possible, given the circumstances. His widow still lives in their home, and her grief was NOT compounded by her suffering financial ruin because of overwhelming medical bills.