President Obama -- Report Card

[joew]

Thanks for the reminder. I'm still in the FEHBP, since we're allowed to continue with it after retirement. I chose Blue Cross/Blue Shield since it was a name I had been familiar with since childhood (it pays to advertise); and I trusted them more than entities I knew notjing about. Choosing them made the decision easy, even though I might have been able to get more for less if I had shopped around when I joined the federal workforce in 1970. For about $152 per month, deducted from my pension I get the basic coverage for one individual. Even with the eminently affordable premiums, I'v certainly paid in way more than the benefits they've paid over the years. Of course, the time may be upon me when I'm getting a better return on my investment. Idk what will happen if I have to live my last ten years in a nursing home.

But certainly if this sort of thing (FEHBP) works for federal employees, it should work for the public in general.

[doctork]

I'd agree joew, FEHBP is a great option with lots of choices, and the fact that the risk pool is large keeps premiums low. If I recall correctly, by law the employee (retiree) pays 25% of the premium cost and the feds (employer -former employer) pays 75%. That would be hard for some people, but for most $150 per month would be manageable for the retiree. The 75% for the former employer - now that is harder.

And a premium of $608 (total, not just your contribution) is a great rate for an individual of retirement age. Most retirement age individuals (50+) can't get coverage at all unless they are Medicare eligible, due to pre-existing conditions, or else they pay very high premiums over $1,000 per month. And those retirees that can continue the same coverage they had pre-retirement are really lucky because they don't have to deal with Medigap and Part D coverage, which cost extra - lost extra.

That is what the power of a large buying pool can do - and FEHBP offers private plans and private doctors/hospitals of your choice, which is what most seem to want. I don't know why this hasn't been explored as a possibility for all.

Medicare doesn't cover long-term nursing care, although most state Medicaid programs do - after you "spend down" your assets. If you are currently healthy (sounds like you are), and risk averse, you could probably buy LTC insurance.

[booklady]

OK, here is another thing I wonder about and never see answered.

To those who oppose increasing the federal deficit to make health insurance more affordable:

Why is it OK to increase the federal deficit to finance a war but not health care? (cost of Iraq + Afghanistan = cost of proposed Obama plan over 10 years)?

Again, I'm trying to pick not a fight but a brain. I want to understand.

[booklady]

Gee, we must have no hawks here who want us to spend money we don't have to wage war.

On to Rep. Wilson, the rebuke, and Jimmy Carter's comments. I agreed with the House decision to rebuke him. I felt that not only did he need to make amends with the President but also with the members of the House. That kind of behavior in that setting needs to be nipped in the bud.

Carter's comments are interesting, to say the least. Here I am in the deep South, and I don't know. The disrespect that's not just out there at political rallies but on the floor of Congress, and the Nazi stuff, well, there's "something happenin' here," as Steven Still sang, "and what it is ain't exactly clear." Like Carter I find it deeply troubling.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32869276/ns/politics-capitol_hill

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

[gailkate]

CNN showed clips from rallies that were extremely disturbing. Looming darky puppets and Obama as the grisly Joker from Batman.

Everyone on that side of the great divide claims that the racism is just a few kooks - and now and then they find a black person in the crowd who will insist it's "just the real America." I wonder how unreal that makes people like us.

I think Obama has been in a tough spot. He wants to be unflappable - and my guess is that's the real guy, who learned long ago to let slime slide off his back - but I think it's a mistake to tolerate abusive behavior. All the talk about how Congress doesn't have time for censure is nonsense. We're talking about the dignity and decorum of the U.S. Congress! Schools have a zero-tolerance policy so why can a Congressman act like a smartass in the back of the class, insulting the President, the Chamber, and our standing as the oldest democracy in the world? Wilson is inciting people to more and more outrageous behavior.

I'm afraid for the President. There've been reports of plots against his life already. Tolerating this backwoods gun-toting mob mentality is a mistake.

[doctork]

I agree with President Carter. I've grown up around Southerners my whole life, even if I didn't always live in the South. I know racism when I see, hear and feel it.

I also belong to an evangelical Christian group (sponsors of some of my mission trips) and I see many dedicated Christian believers, some of whom also have racist tendencies they may not want to recognize.

If you grew up in America, you grew up in a racist society. A society of great opportunity, but racist nonetheless. We still have room to improve.

There is also a more generalized lack of civility, a coarsening of our society.

There are some true conservatives who are genuinely (and rightly from their point of view) offended by rising deficit spending, and the possibility that tax funds and tax breaks would go to fund abortion (as they can already do today when a private insurer covers abortion, and the employer who offers it gets a tax deduction). I think the majority of the noise is generated by dollar-seeking entertainers ("news media") and people of bad intent who hide behind the cloak of "conservatism."

Don't forget that Obama grew up in Hawaii, which is a multicultural environment - predominantly Asian and Pacific Islanders, not white or black - very different from the rest of the US (though the other 49 states are also changing more recently). He's a graduate of Punahou School, a rigorous K-12 private school founded over 150 years ago for the children of missionaries. It has generous scholarship programs and has long made efforts to be non-elitist, though it still carries that reputation. We lived in Hawaii 3 years, and I attended Punahou too - one acquires a very different view of race and attitudes in the islands.

Funding the war vs healthcare? For one thing, war funding is sometimes "off the books" in the form of special or emergency appropriations, so it "doesn't count" in budget deficits; I think Obama's budget corrects that inaccuracy. Though healthcare interests are powerful and entrenched, I think those of the military-industrial complex are even more so. Healthcare happens mainly within the US, while military and energy interests have to do with global power, and are aligned with international interests.

Both groups have powerful lobbyists aiming to maintain the status quo. The 80% of us who have insurance are generally happy with it - why change? And spend a lot of money to do so.

Also - the piling up of increasingly large deficit amounts is worrisome. If healthcare deficits came before the huge banking and auto bailouts, it might have been more acceptable financially. Many of us do legitimately worry about our children's and grandchildren's futures since they will have to pay this off.

I myself took pause when Obama pronounced that pediatricians were doing tonsillectomies and ear tube surgeries to make more money, instead of using medical treatments. Does he know nothing about medicine? But I know that his policy wonks are better informed. I hope.

[gailkate]

The rising deficit makes us all nervous, not just conservatives. i get a kick out of the notion that liberals are fiddle-all-summer grasshoppers while conservatives are slow-and-steady ants. A whole bunch of people who claim to be conservative rode the criminal financial wave till it crested and flung them into a trough. Even then they tried to scramble to save their crooked gains any way possible.

The comfort I try to remember is that we've been here before. After the debacle of the 80s and early 90s, when things couldn't look much darker, we experienced a robust economy and erased what had looked like an insurmountable deficit. Part of that was based on the dot.com bubble, but the government and national deficit/debt weren't swamped. (Reasons for the next recession are pretty complex, what with 9/11, airlines failing, the war's cost and Bush's inexcusable tax cuts. Let's not go there.) My point is that we've looked at huge numbers before, and we need to try to keep them in perspective.

When the Dem health plan was decried as costing a trillion dollars over 10 years, no one countered with the fact that - as you said, K - healthcare costs 2.4 trillion every year right now. The idea that insurance companies want fair competition but couldn't compete against a public option is laughable.

For those willing to read it, here's a pretty critical piece on the stalemate we're in now:
William Rivers Pitt | Back to the Health Care Drawing Board
www.truthout.org/091709A?n
"Give some credit to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who unveiled his $774 billion health care reform bill on Wednesday, for being true to his word about wanting to craft a centrist, compromise piece of legislation. That's exactly what he did, and after revealing his bill, that's exactly where Baucus put us: in the middle of the road, right where all the squashed roadkill can be found lying on top of a long, yellow stripe."

Pitt goes on to rip the plan to shreds and insists we have to start over. I'm not saying I agree with him, but it sure is discouraging.

[doctork]

Here's the 220+ page Baucus bill, which on quick glance appears to be written in plain English, and I don't think you have to be a policy wonk to understand it:

finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf

The outline looks comprehensive, but I haven't read it through yet. I'm sure the critics can raise the usual complaints, but let's see if any critics have a realistic better proposal. No hands raised? Didn't think so. Funny, when I've seen roadkill it's been on the side of the road, not in the middle (and I am in WV where they have Roadkill Cook-offs, so I think I am knowledgeable).

I don't think a public option necessarily makes a difference unless it will offer lower prices by virtue of taxpayer funding. Since "public option" is an apparent deal breaker, I say leave it out, but put in a trigger - private plans haven't done the job by 201X, then a public option is added. Maybe that would appease both sides if they will be reasonable for a moment on compromise.

I haven't heard the "small states" complaint recently, but kudos for Baucus for putting something centrist out. And a question - if CA and NY and OH and TX and FL are so upset about a bill coming from a Montana Senator, why didn't those Senators sign up to be on Senate Finance, Sub-Committee on Health? It's not like healthcare as a political issue is a surprise out of left field that no one could have foreseen would be important.

[gailkate]

There's a somewhat encouraging graph here that belongs on the front page of our papers. At least it made me feel a bit better.
www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2144

If the trend continues, we may see a more hopeful summer.

[sailor]

A roadside sign from Minnesota of all places.



Gotta love it! Makes me proud to be an American!

Mike

[Jane]

Don't miss him even a little bit!