rewrite the bill to shovel taxpayer money into the pockets of private insurers

Ah, the system we have now, but with tax money going to private corporations. Yeah, I can’t see anything wrong with that *snerk*.

How long before they start floating the “voucher” thing like they’re doing with education, on the basis of “choice”? “Give the poor tax breaks to buy inferior health care! Whee! Free market uber alles!”

We need to slow down this Democrat health care reform so that we can come up with a bipartisan solution like Teddy Kennedy would have wanted.

We should put off discussing a bill until like maybe December of 2012 or something.

Give the poor tax breaks to buy inferior health care! Whee! Free market uber alles!”

They already are. Isn’t that basically what those “health savings accounts” are all about? Pre-tax money so you can pay for your own healthcare, while praying really hard that nothing serious comes along and wipes all your savings out? “Play The Odds Accounts” would be a better name for them.

Isn’t that basically what those “health savings accounts” are all about?

I’m sure Chucky would find even that too inefficent, looking more for something that would enable insurance companies to siphon tax money even from people unable to afford a MSA. Which would be where the “voucher” idea comes in, with, as I said, much whining from the GOP that any opposition to it would be unfairly restricting people’s “choice”.

The Kraphammer.of the Gods.

Oh my god. Krauthammer can just jump in a lake. He can even drive off a bridge if he wants ta.

BTW, I found an immediate case of Clown Shoes in the comments section. “Dh” started complaining that a 75 year old would have to wait 6 months for an MRI under “Nationalized Healthcare.”

I mentioned that apparently he’s got no clue what Medicare is.

America wants and needs health care advice from an obviously deranged man who crippled himself permanently and completely by diving into an empty swimming pool.

But believe it or not this is not the WaPo’s #1 outrage of the day. Check out staff writer Monica Hesse’s love-letter to NOM’s executive fag-basher Brian Brown (he plays good cop to Maggie Gallagher’s Ilsa the She-Wolf.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704139.html

Turns out Brown is the “rational, mainstream and sane” new face of virulent homophobia! Hooray!

Under Krauthammer’s proposal (which seems like what, alas, we’ll get), what’s to stop health insurers from saying “well, since we are being so regulated, we have to up our premiums”? Without a public option (or Nixon-esque price controls that today’s spiritual descendants of Nixon would make sure don’t actually happen) there would be no competition (which I thought righties were supposed to like) to keep prices down.

So what’ll happen? Health Insurance prices will go up and Krauthammer’s political friends will blame it all on “Democrat socialized medicine”. And this will magically make our liberal goals happen how?

Either Krauthammer is smoking something or this piece is beyond disingenuous (of course these two options need not be mutually exclusive).

This is the sort of thing a Kraphammer might pull for:

Health-care reform: Medical insurers poised to reap a healthy ‘bonanza’

Lobbying efforts win health-care concessions

By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger | Tribune Newspapers | August 24, 2009

WASHINGTON – — Demonized by Democrats and ostensibly threatened with more government regulation, medical insurance executives have lobbied so successfully in Washington and the home districts of key lawmakers that they are poised to reap a financial windfall from the health-care overhaul.

“It’s a bonanza,” said Robert Laszewski, who tracks reform legislation as president of consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates.

Some insurance company leaders profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Barack Obama’s massive health-care initiative and point to concessions granted. But Laszewski said the industry’s reaction to early negotiations boils down to one word: “Hallelujah!”…

…The half-dozen leading proposals in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, guaranteeing insurers tens of millions of new customers, many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies’ premiums. At the same time, these proposals would limit government’s potential role as competitor and regulator.

“The insurers are going to do quite well,” said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the non-partisan Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “They are going to have this very stable pool, they’re going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and … they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide, plus their administrative costs.”…

…In May, the Senate Finance Committee discussed requiring that insurers reimburse at least 76 percent of policyholders’ medical costs under their most affordable plans. Now, the committee is considering setting that rate as low as 65 percent, meaning insurers would be required to cover just two-thirds of patients’ health-care bills.

Today, most group health plans cover at least 80 percent of a policyholder’s medical bills, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Industry officials say that the change is necessary for insurers to provide flexible, affordable insurance plans.

I don’t think it’s pre-determined that this will be the outcome, but Democrats are perilously close to handing power back to the Republicans.

If they as a party are stupid enough to pass ‘health care reform’ which deregulates insurers, raises premiums, massively increases deductibles, and yet subsidizes insurance megacorporations, then they are toast, and so is the nation, as sensibly outraged voters will toss out the then-hated Democrats in favor of the nation-destroying Republicans.

People better get off their asses and make sure that the insurance lobbyists on the Democratic Senate’s Finance Committee doesn’t turn health care reform into a citizen-screwing industry bailout, ’cause they’d apparently loooooove to do that.

“Dh” started complaining that a 75 year old would have to wait 6 months for an MRI under “Nationalized Healthcare.”

Geee, you mean we’d have to wait as long as Canadians have to, under the right wing nightmare scenario?

I’m all for that. It means parity with Canada!

Seems to me the folks whining about the public option and how great things are right now and why do we have to tinker with the best health care system in teh world..

Have never been sick. Never had a moment’s interaction with their insurance company.

I retired early, paid lots of money to continue my coverage under COBRA, moved to another town, found a new doctor and clinic, scheduled a colonoscopy (6 months wait) and by the time I had the procedure, my insurance had cancelled their contract with the clinic. And notified me of that fact one week after the procedure. Which meant paying for out-of-network.

Fortunately, and this is where the music swells into a major chord, I was able to talk to a very nice young man at the insurance company, who, once I explained my predicament, went ahead and fixed it all up, on his computer, right then and there.

So the major insurance companies are mostly blood-sucking leeches, but some of the help is pretty swell.

And yes, now I’m on Medicare and back with my original choice of clinic. And quite happy, thank you.

A few years back, SNL had a skit that purported to be the “alternate ending” of It’s a Wonderful Life, where the townsfolk chipped in to save George Bailey’s bank, and when Old Man Potter came by to gloat, the mob tipped him out of his wheelchair and kicked the decrepit bastard to death. Somewhere along the line I must have replaced the actual ending of It’s a Wonderful Life in my mind with the SNL sketch, because I remember being disappointed on several occasions that they chopped off the ‘original’ ending for the annual television broadcast.

I think your photoshop reminded me of this. Maybe also some part of me wants to see Krauthammer tipped out of his wheelchair and kicked to death, though I would never actually say that out loud.

Oh and BTW, Fuck you Upchuck Krauthamandegger.

ONOES! Deh RATIONING!!! It’ll be all rationing!!! And don’t forgets deh rationings. Rationing rationing rationing!!!!

WTF does he mean? That poor peoples will actually get medical care? ONOES!

I guess the private system is much bettar, with no rationings at all. When I get a tummyache then I can go and have elventy-gazillion doctors personally come out and visit me in my home and mow my lawn while hawt sexy nurses give me teh MRI’s.

Fuck you Chuckles. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Teh “rationing” argument, especially in teh recission/lifetime-cap/too-experimental-and-not-covered reality that currently exists; it’s fucktardedly shitdumbpooh. You’d do better (and also be more believable) to claim that nationalized health care is gonna make teh terrarists into cyborg ninja space pirates.

Pirates! That are also cyborg ninjas from space!

You know that old saying, of dubious provenance, that a democracy cannot long exist because eventually the people learn they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury?

It’s obviously a mistranslation of the original: A democracy cannot long exist because eventually large corporate entities will discover they can bribe themselves largesse from the public treasury.

Why doesn’t Congress at least do this honestly and pass the 2009 We Promise to Cut a $100,000,000,000 Check to Blue Shield Once A Year in Perpetuity Act? It wouldn’t need to be 1000 pages long and would precisely accomplish Krauthammer’s goal.

Why doesn’t Congress at least do this honestly and pass the 2009 We Promise to Cut a $100,000,000,000 Check to Blue Shield Once A Year in Perpetuity Act?

Because there are more companies than that, so you’d need more money.

Pirates! That are also cyborg ninjas from space!

What, not MONKEY cyborg ninja pirates?

Undead monkey cyborg ninja pirates. Now THAT’S COOL.

I mean, of course, undead monkey cyborg ninja SPACE pirates.

My bad.

Undead ROBOT monkey ninja space pirates!

WOOT.

Krauthammer … [a] man who crippled himself permanently and completely by diving into an empty swimming pool.

DON’T TELL ASHTON!

Are robots better than cyborgs?

Geee, you mean we’d have to wait as long as Canadians have to, under the right wing nightmare scenario?

Gee, you mean that healthcare for a 75-year-old American isn’t already nationalized? That’s what I was getting at!!!!eleventyone!!

Gee, you mean that healthcare for a 75-year-old American isn’t already nationalized? That’s what I was getting at!!!!eleventyone!!

The fact that Medicare is Canada and the VA is the UK is central to my point!

late to this a bit, but i must tap *bestest fotoshoppe evah*! – where is tommy udo when you need him?!?

A bit late to this thread, but the problem with the UK’s health care system (which Krauthammer is so quick to bash UHC for) is that it’s horribly, horribly underfunded.

The NHS is not perfect, and has suffered long periods of underinvestment. Germany and France spend approximately 12% of their GDP on healthcare, but Britain only rose above 6% to approx 8% in the first half of this decade, and you can be sure that’s about to fall again.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-socialistic-collectivist.html

i am in the midst of yet another insurance-related disaster, and although i try hard to keep it family friendly on the internons, i just have to say: FUCK YOU CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER.

It’s not from “It’s a WonderfulLife'” that’s Richard Widmark in “Kiss of Death” pushing that wheelchair. He murders an old lady by pushing the chair down the aparment house stairs. Its a really horrifying scene and perfectly appropriate fate for “Wheels” Krauthammer as I call him.