Assuming Burgess' account of the snub is true and unbiased, that's unfortunate. However, I have a hard time believing that's all there was to it given the closeness of both the House and Senate votes. To discount even a single vote likely to be gained on such a close vote would be folly.
Not necessarily. Given the Democrats large majorities in both houses, they really didn’t need any Republican votes especially in the House. In the Senate, they briefly pursued Snowe and Collins of Maine in an attempt to insure a filibuster proof majority, but couldn’t even draw the support of those moderate Republicans (likewise my own Senator Murkowski.) Not getting any Republican support goes along nicely with painting them the “Party of No.”
What really made the passing difficult was the election of Brown in Mass and the fact that they no longer had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Thus they had to ram the Senate version through the house, something they did not expect.
Bottom line, they didn’t think they needed Republican votes so they didn’t include them in the shaping of the bill.
One point, I will concede is that when the Republicans held the Congress and Presidency, they lost an opportunity to present meaningful market based reform to our health care system to lower costs and fix some of the severe inequities of our present system , essentially conceding the issue to the Democrats with their distain for the efficiency of markets. The result is that we are left with thois abomination of a bill that will drive up not lower costs.
As for dismissing Burgess' question with a non-sequitor, I'm not sure if you saw the same reply I did. What I saw was Obama restating Burgess' question for the audience, after which he acknowledged that there are some cases where Burgess was correct that tort reform could help reduce costs. He then went on to rebut Burgess' position by pointing out that according to Burgess himself, TX already has successfully implemented tort reform and yet was used
as one example in an article that pointed out the widely varying costs in healthcare...point being that Burgess' suggestion was/is unlikely to make a significant dent in costs elsewhere if it hadn't done so in a state like TX where tort reform has been implemented successfully. (I pointed out the same thing with scholarly research to back it up in the ES healthcare reform thread BTW.)
Interesting method of forming an argument. Your argument basically goes like this.
1. Texas has passed tort reform.
2. McAllen, Texas has high per capita medical costs
3. Therefore, tort reform does not lower medical costs
The logic fallacy in that is shocking to say the least. The article you linked doesn’t even mention tort. But it does mention the following very critical point:
“Just look around,” the cadet said. “People are not healthy here.” McAllen, with its high poverty rate, has an incidence of heavy drinking sixty per cent higher than the national average. And the Tex-Mex diet has contributed to a thirty-eight-per-cent obesity rate.
I have seen this same logic used by proponents of single payer system by pointing out that countries with single payer systems use a smaller portion of their GNP on health care and have higher life expectancy. However, this would be a valid comparison only if the method of paying for health care was the entire determinate of the cost. Instead you need to factor in such factors as our obesity, lack of exercise, gun violence, use of drugs, genetic factors. You also have to consider that our (somewhat) free market health care system is also responsible for a large part of the world medical innovation. (You really don’t see medical innovation coming out of Britain’s system or the VA either for that matter.)
There are also numerous studies that show how much defensive medicine is being practiced because of fear of lawsuits and malpractice insurance is expensive and such costs always get passed on to the consumer and reflect themselves in the rates we are changed and ultimately in our insurance rates. However, it is no surprise that given the amount of money that trial lawyers give to the Democratic party, that tort reform was taken entirely off the table.
Moreover, the healthcare reform law did in fact include a provision to expand the Stark law which in essence eliminated self referral by physicians which has been repeatedly shown to
greatly increase utilization and costs. Aside from the research, I don't think it's too big a leap to understand that allowing physicians to have an ownership stake in diagnostic testing will result in more diagnostic tests being ordered.
Perhaps it does increase the number of tests. But doesn’t an increase in the number of tests also result in improved results? But this is so typical of the liberal mentality where they try to control everything through regulation and ignore the effect of market forces. Here in an example from my personal experience. In March of 2009 I went to a new PCP for a physical. The Doc asked who my internist was and I told him and he said, well you will be having your colonoscopy with someone you know. Then because I have a high deductable insurance policy and would be paying for said colonoscopy out of my pocket, I asked about a much lower cost fecal test (use your imagination.) He said that he didn’t like it because it can miss some things. But that is what I opted to do because I had done my research and knew the fecal test was what is actually recommended and I have no other symptoms and no family history.
Contrast to my father-in-law who got a colonoscopy at age 80 paid by Medicare even though he had no symptoms “just in case.” The stark law had no bearing in either case but in one, the fact that I was paying for it caused me to be an informed consumer and limit my use of medical costs while my father-in-law, because he wasn’t paying for it, went ahead and had it done which meant that less funds were available for something that someone really needed. That is your single payer system in action.
Wow, despise the man? Really? No I don't think you're one of the wingnuts, but regardless, that's a bit intense for someone you've never met. Sure it happens for people like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. However, if you think whatever it is that Obama has allegedly done is on the same level, or even close...
I could crash the server if I documented all the reasons why I despise the man. But the summary reason which is similar to that expressed by others on this forum, is that I don’t believe that he is truthful. I particularly find offensive his tendency to demonize groups of American people whether they are Tea Partiers, insurance companies, banks, Arizonians, etc. I don’t care that Obama sat beside his mothers bedside as a young boy and listened to her argue with her insurance company as she was dying from cancer, the fact is that insurance companies are no more responsible for the high cost of health care than gas stations are responsible for the high cost of gas when oil goes to $140 per barrel and to insult American citizens that are trying to make a living is totally irresponsible. Add to that his anti-business stance which is doing more than anything to prevent economic recovery by hurting business confidence.
You also have to understand that I have developed a deep distrust for liberals as a result of my experiences on the CPND politics and War forum. When Sarah Palin was nominated it became an open field day on her. Now I have no problem with discussing her actual record as governor which was moderate and in direct contrast to Obama, open transparent and bi-partisan. But the attacks on her were not based upon her record but instead were attacks on her family and her intelligence and were based upon falsehoods. But the liberal posters in CPND were not content to limit their attacks to Sarah Palin. They instead decided to bash the entire state. I was called stupid and my wife, kids and our friends were insulted. Not only did the moderators tolerate it in some cases they engaged in it. Even though I had posted with some of these guys for over 10 years, only one stood up for me. The other’s either joined in or said nothing like a bunch of cowards. And when this one individual stood up they turned on him also. That’s why I’m here and not at CPND any more.
But I’m starting to see some of the “Tea Bagger” type comments in this forum and I don’t believe anyone has the right to use that sort of derogatory comments regarding a fellow American anymore than anyone has the right to use the n word. Based upon my experiences at CPND, I believe that political discussion is incompatible with the larger purposes of this site and while I don’t like censorship, I’m personally going to stay out of political discussions. There is simply too much about this board that I like, to get caught up in this.
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