The Big Speech - Part 3

I hope we're getting through to the President. In a recent article based on an interview with CBS, Foxnews reported the President seems to be opening up on a few key ideas with regards to reforming health care. The two biggest areas of compromise seem to be opening the possibility of tort reform and removal of the public option. Neither of these have made it into writing yet but we'll see what happens.

You can read the whole article here.

I'm choosing to ignore the dumber comments in that article for now.

Tort reform deals with handling all the frivilous malpractice lawsuits that plague the medical community. This is a vital step in reducing unnecessary testing aimed at reducing lawsuits as well as lowering the overall cost of practicing medicine. Republicans have been trying to accomplish this reform for many years now but efforts have traditionally been blocked by Democrats. So if Obama truly pushes his colleagues for serious tort reform then I think he will be met in the middle with a little more serious compromise on the part of Republicans. Don't expect a public option but you could see more votes for reform.

I still have to point towards the smugness of several key Democrat politicians as a major roadblock. As long as Pelosi, Reid, and other Democrats continue to hold reconciliation over the heads of Republicans, they will find the vast majority of Republicans (and probably a great deal of the American people) opposing everything they do, not just the issues they want to make a big deal about. Holding out reconciliation as the ultimate option is the ultimate in partisan politics, which is the exact political game the Democrats have been playing since they gained such a large majority in Congress. By now I'm certain a majority of Americans realize the mistake they've made in giving them that majority after seeing the childish way they've handled their "great power" without "great responsibility."

If Democrats are serious about health care reform the people can support, they will drop the nuclear option of reconciliation and get serious about hammering out differences. It seems you can't get a Democratic leader on camera without hearing about how they'll only deal with Republicans for so long and then they'll go it alone. Do it and we'll see what happens in the 2010 congressional elections.

I'd be surprised is Pelosi and Reid are reelected next year. I think their political careers are over already. The question is how many more Democrats will fall? The Bible says "Pride comes before a fall." The pride has come. Soon we'll see the fall.

Well, I should handle another quote or two from Obama's epic speech to Congress.

Quote #9: " First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the V.A., nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."

The problem with this quote is that Obama really doesn't have any control over this. It's a pipe dream. Most options on the table now include a penalty for not giving health coverage to employees. If the penalty is cheaper than the cost of insurance, you can be sure employers will leave their employees to whatever other option they can come up with. If the penalty is more expensive then insurance companies will have more room to play with costs and we all could be paying more anyway. So it's easy for Obama to make this statement but it isn't very probably that he could back it up with reality.

Quote #10: "What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition."

First of all, we don't have a plan yet so it's useless to talk about what it will do. Obama would be better off setting goals rather than making promises he can't keep. As for preexisting conditions I have put forth the idea in a previous blog that we should consider pushing the insurance companies to offer high risk health insurance. This allows the companies to protect their risk investment while keeping those in lower risk categories at lower rates. I don't like the idea of higher rates due to a preexisting condition but at least I would have the option of coverage. Obviously some conditions are a higher risk for greater monetary outflow than others and the rates should correspond.

Now there are some conditions that insurance companies are going to have a hard time being on the hook for. I understand the reoccurance of cancer, for example, can be a back-breaker for insurance companies if their forced to cover it, even with high risk rates. In those special cases I think there can be government options to consider. This is no easy matter and there are a great many places to look for solutions. In the case of cancers due to smoking we should consider making tobacco companies cover the costs. I don't take responsibility away from the smoker but neither do I take it way from companies that profit from such an obviously deadly substance. This is an example and there may well be other industries we need to look at as well. Most "sin" taxes wind up going to help with education or other more noble quests. I'd rather see them cover the real damage they cause.

I'll handle more later.