Did anybody weep over the demise of blacksmithing as an industry? Are people upset that video rental stores are a thing whose time has passed? It’s time we move on from health insurers, too.

“Their misery,” hell!  Put them out of our misery!

With a robust public option available, think of the boost to the economy that would happen from people suddenly being free to pursue better job opportunities or start their own businesses, once they don’t have to worry that by doing so they’d be - literally - risking their lives.  With that, anyone at risk of being laid off from an insurance company would have much better career chances anyway. 

And the executives could go frackin’ work at Starbucks.

This is an emotional issue for many Americans.  This so-called “public option” in Government run health care presents serious challenges for us.  As Consumers we should be able to compare the cost and quality of health care services. How much is a specific surgery at one hospital, as compared with another? http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/media/

I’m not losing sleep over the idea of the insurance executives becoming unemployed.  With the money they’ve been making, I would hope they had planned enough for their future that they could handle some time without unemployment.  Shit, at $25 million/yr. they should be able to fucking retire and still live like kings.

I have a friend who works for United Health Care and, while she makes good money, she is among the people that would be hit by the insurance companies going under.  In my least charitable moments, I think that maybe there should be a cost to being complicit in the greed of their employers.  In my more charitable moments, I agree with Auguste.  At least they’d have health care while they looked for work.  That’s a hell a lot more than many people have now.

danaT, the US Chamber of Commerce is about the last place you should be looking for how a public option would affect health care. Tell me if you really think these folks are advocates for the interests of the average person.

Insurance companies drive so many decisions that companies make it’s obscene. And they don’t give a crap about you, the insured. For the most part they see us as annoying, whiny fraudsters who have nothing better to do than scheme to deprive them of the money that’s rightfully theirs.

How much is a specific surgery at one hospital, as compared with another?

Yea, well good luck with getting a straight answer on that question, danaT.  Which price would you like?  Insurance companies set the price they’ll pay for a procedure, Medicare sets the price they’ll pay for the same procedure and hospital set the price they’ll charge people without insurance for that same procedure.  There are no set prices. 

Furthermore, insurance companies frequently lock you into “prefered providers”, charging you significantly more to go to another medical provider.  There are 3 major hospitals in my city but I’m only allowed to go to one.  Would my treatment be cheaper at one of the other hospital?  Not for me because my insurance company only covers me at 80% at one of them.

Gosh, danaT sounds so sincere about his/her position, and not at all like a PR-speak spokesbot.

This is an emotional issue for many Americans.

Americans dying by the thousands of treatable conditions does tend to stir the emotion, yes.

This so-called “public option” in Government run health care presents serious challenges for us.

What do you mean, “us?”  Did you mean to post this on a CIGNA message board?  And do the challenges of the (not “so-called”) public option compare with the challenge faced by Americans who cannot get coverage under the current private regime?

As Consumers we should be able to compare the cost and quality of health care services. How much is a specific surgery at one hospital, as compared with another?

And yet the insurance industries shirk at the idea of having to compete with a government plan.  Not very “free market” of them.  Of course, “the free market” has proven to be just a slogan to keep the suckers happy and the corporate giants unregulated.  Or has there been a recent rise in “mom and pop” medical insurance companies that I’ve missed?

And the US Chamber of Commerce has friends?  Really?  Will they help the Chamber move on a Sunday morning?  Will they feed the Chamber’s pets over the course of a long vacation?

These denials and “dumb moves” are so inherent in the system that it actually surprises me that Rocky Mountain Health Plans changed anything at all.

Perhaps it’s a bit surprising that RMHP reversed their position on the “overweight” baby they wouldn’t cover initially, but not nearly as surprising as it would have been if it had been CIGNA, Aetna, or UHC making that decision.

Based on a quick glance at their “About Us” page on their website, Rocky Mountain Health Plans appears to be a co-op… it states pretty clearly that they are a not-for-profit provider.  Legally, I don’t believe they could claim to be a non-profit if it weren’t in fact true.  Which means that their decisions are not profit oriented, as opposed to the major players in the publicly-traded marketplace of insurance providers.  They don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to make money, and as a matter of fact, I believe they are legally required to reinvest whatever excess money they take in back into the co-op, as opposed to handing out dividends.

Anyway, my point isn’t meant to be an argument in favor of co-ops.  I have no problem with the principle of co-ops, but I have a lot of problems in believing that co-ops could ever provide genuine competition to the for-profit health insurance industry, because they lack government backing and oversight.  I just don’t think that co-ops could ever be truly effective at forcing the for-profits health insurance companies to reform themselves.

DanaT, the problem (and the cue that your astroturfing) is that you refer to American citizens as Healthcare consumers. Like an appendectomy is the same thing as a flatscreen TV and you have the time and wherewithal to shop around for the best price. Health care is part of the infrastructure. You don’t shop around for the best road to drive on, or for the best provider of water. You rely on the service to work when you need it. The Public Option is a move towards returning health care to the position it belongs at and already is in every other civilized nation ont he planet: something that is simply there and works when you need it, and that you don’t have to worry about. The fact that Americans do have to worry about the cost of medical procedures and that this is a factor in whether or not to get them, is an atrocity.

I guess we shouldn’t waste anymore pixels on danaT.  The Google tells me it was a hit and run astroturfing.

Well, crud.  It worked in preview.  Oh, well.  Cut and paste her post and slap it up on a Google search and you’ll find it a fairly popular piece of blather.

”“Their misery,” hell!  Put them out of our misery!”

Beat me to it, but that…

DTG:

Not-for-profits are a little better than for-profit companies in this area, but even not-for-profit just means you spend all the money that comes in on something.

Legally, I don’t believe they could claim to be a non-profit if it weren’t in fact true.  Which means that their decisions are not profit oriented, as opposed to the major players in the publicly-traded marketplace of insurance providers.  They don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to make money, and as a matter of fact, I believe they are legally required to reinvest whatever excess money they take in back into the co-op, as opposed to handing out dividends.

Non-profit companies aren’t really “non-profit” in the philanthropic sense.  They aren’t allowed to trade publicly or pay dividends or the like, but they can pay salaries and bonuses however they like.  So every dime Rocky Mountain doesn’t pay out in claims can go into the back pocket of the CEO.

Blue Cross / Blue Shield runs the same way in many states.  There is still a big profit motive on the end of every decision.

Did anybody weep over the demise of blacksmithing as an industry?

Me!

Then again, this is because I am a writer and I regret the need to go do actual research in order to write historical or fantahistorical stories instead of having a local blacksmith to go bother. I’m not particularly upset by in any other aspect of my daily life, and I don’t know too many pitiable, unemployed blacksmiths wandering around…

Emaloo: This may be heresy to say to a doctor’s daughter, but I’d recommend you find a good acupuncturist (with a degree in Oriental medicine, if possible.)

My acupuncturist doesn’t take insurance, but charges only $65 a visit (in Beverly Hills!)—your HSA would cover nearly ten treatments, although you may not need that number before the backpain subsides.

I needed only two treatments to be rid of my sciatica pain, and the sciatica.

Back pains, injuries are also something Western medicine seems not to deal with well—with only two treatments at either end of a wide spectrum: pain pills or invasive surgery (that often doesn’t work.)

Your body is trying to tell you something with the pain, Oriental medicine corrects the underlying cause, not just the symptoms. And it also includes a different modality for diagnosis, than Western medicine does.

If insurance companies are so afwaid of lowing business, then why don’t they try, ya know, providing good service?  If it’s impossible to provide good service and make a profit, then they should be eager to hand the whole thing over to a non-profit option.

They say that any government-run program will naturally suck, but at the same time, that sucky plan will out-compete them.  The only conclusion is that they realize their own plans are suckier than the worst government plan they can invent.  Or, they’re giant hypocrites.

“I’m not enjoying the thought of what will happen to the lower-level employees of the health insurance companies if we finally manage to deliver the coup de grace, but when I weigh them against the now-estimated 45,000 deaths a year , I have to conclude that I’m just happy that they’d have health care while they’re looking for other work. “

Well, actually no; the new healthcare would not be available for a few years, so if immediate layoffs resulted from a bill signing, then they wouldn’t.

And that would affect me; hcare insurance is one of the few employers in my area, and yeah, I work for one of those companies.  Nobody else is hiring.

But I still want reform. Because if I lost my hcare industry job, I would join all those other Americans without access. I’ve been there before, luckily not when I had major medical needs. But there’s no guarantee I’ll have this job and this coverage forever, even if no bill gets signed. And when my son is an adult, I don’t want him to take the risks I was forced to take.

BTW, even at my company, you’d laugh to see all the Obama stickers in the parking lot. Lots of my fellow workers feel the same way.

Yes, I know it’s spam, but still ...

As Consumers we should be able to compare the cost and quality of health care services. How much is a specific surgery at one hospital, as compared with another?

Wrong question:  what you need to do is create is a matrix that shows every insurance company that each hospital deals with, the price that the hospital charges each insurance company for procedures, care and doctors’ fees, and factor in what your premium and coverage would be with each insurance company, what portion of your hospital stay and charges each company would cover, which portion of doctors’ fees the insurance covers, and how much of the remaining portion would be billed to you.  Then when you, say, have a heart attack, you can pull out your database and cross-compare each hospital and insurance company to figure out which combination will give you the best deal in the next half hour.  If it takes you more than half an hour to negotiate everything and figure out who will give you the best deal, you’ll be dead anyway, so all you’ll have to do is make sure you arranged your funeral expenses.

So easy even a child could do it!

Non-profit companies aren’t really “non-profit” in the philanthropic sense.  They aren’t allowed to trade publicly or pay dividends or the like, but they can pay salaries and bonuses however they like.  So every dime Rocky Mountain doesn’t pay out in claims can go into the back pocket of the CEO.

Blue Cross / Blue Shield runs the same way in many states.  There is still a big profit motive on the end of every decision.

Yeah, I just discovered my own naivete on this issue.  I’m hardly a wonk on all the microdetails surrounding the HCR debate, and I had always assumed that the major criticism of co-ops was that they lacked the teeth to really reform anything, but that they were otherwise generally benevolent entities.  It appears I am gravely mistaken, at least in regards to one health care co-op, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota:

BISMARCK, N.D.— For the North Dakota insurance sales reps, March may have been the ideal time to enjoy the swim-up bar at a resort on Grand Cayman Island. But back on the northern Plains, where temperatures were below zero, policyholders at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota were less delighted when they learned about the trip for 66 staff members and guests.

Word of the $238,000 Caribbean retreat broke last winter, compounded by news of other perks: $15 million in executive bonuses over five years, $400,000 for charter flights and $35,000 for a vice president’s retirement party. And when the ensuing uproar cost Michael Unhjem his job as chief executive, his landing was softened by a $2.5 million severance payment. The golden parachute had been added to his contract after his 2006 drunken-driving arrest, a state audit pointed out.

In an era in which stories of corporate excess have become common, the drama of North Dakota’s dominant insurer resonated deeply here, largely because the state’s nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield is essentially a cooperative, owned by policyholders. It is an arrangement close to the model promoted by powerful lawmakers as an alternative to the “public option” that would put the federal government in the insurance business. The legislation that the Senate Finance Committee will probably approve Tuesday calls for the creation of health insurance cooperatives in all 50 states and the District.

A liberal group here argues that the North Dakota scandal illustrates the danger of assuming that the cooperative model would assure virtuous behavior, especially in an industry awash in money.

So yeah, umm, fuck co-ops, too.  A government-run public option is the only way we’re going to get a system of efficiently managing costs where profit isn’t a motive for those in charge of managing the care.

And, while I think he came in under shady circumstances and is quickly headed to a very, very short Senate career, I must commend Senator Roland Burris for being the only U.S. Senator to step forward and draw a line in the sand - the final senate bill will contain a public option, or it won’t get his vote, period.

If his colleagues have any brains, they’ll take his threat very seriously.  He knows that he’s gonna be out of a job come January 2011, so it isn’t as if he has a future in the Senate to really worry about.  I don’t think he’s fucking around.  And even if it means that he’ll stand side-by-side with 40 Republicans to kill a useless bill, so be it.

We’ve come too far now.  A crappy bill without a public option isn’t an option.  I think people are resigned to accepting a much-less-than-perfect bill here, but you’ve gotta give them something, and you’ve gotta have a foundation to build upon.  No public option with a mandate to buy private insurance is just a set-up to make the insurance lobby even richer, to make our fucked-up system even more fucked-up than it already is, and to completely alienate the base.

Senate Democrats, if you pass a truly shitty bill that does not offer a government-run public option as an alternative to the private health insurance racket, it will be NO BETTER THAN PASSING NO BILL AT ALL COME NEXT NOVEMBER.  BELIEVE THIS.  60 seats?  GONE.  You idiots will be lucky to salvage a thin majority if you throw us under the bus with this bill.  No, I’m not voting Republican next year, or ever.  But I tell you what… if they sell us out, I may be too busy counting leaves on my lawn next November to bother voting.

And that would affect me; hcare insurance is one of the few employers in my area, and yeah, I work for one of those companies.  Nobody else is hiring.

Don’t feel too bad, especially in this economy.

I worked briefy as a call center rep for United Health Care several years ago right out of college.  And I fucking hate them now.  I demonize a lot of the really shitty corporations in America, but I do that knowing that I’ve been employed by a few of them and may have to be again at some point in my life.  In a corporatocracy as big as America, it’s almost inevitable that someone you know and care about is probably stuck working for one of these vampire fucks.

Emaloo,

Have you considered physical therapy for back pain?  Medication and surgery are not the only medical options.  If you go with chiropractic, you have to be very careful.  Do not let them adjust your neck at all; it has a small risk of stroke with no benefit at all.  If your pain gets worse, stop going, immediately.  My mom had a herniated disk and went to a chiropractor, who turned it into a ruptured disk.  As for acupuncture, it hasn’t been shown to be particularly effective on back pain.  You might get some relief, but you could just as much if you got someone to randomly stick needles in your back (or even pretend to stick them into you).  If you choose acupuncture, make sure they use sterile, single-use needles.  It’s rare, but some diseases can be spread through contaminated needles.  A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t do it anywhere that you wouldn’t be willing to get a body piercing.

60 seats?  GONE.  You idiots will be lucky to salvage a thin majority if you throw us under the bus with this bill.  No, I’m not voting Republican next year, or ever.  But I tell you what… if they sell us out, I may be too busy counting leaves on my lawn next November to bother voting.

The problem is, we really have no viable alternative to Democrats.  I’m registered as “non-affiliated” and yet I always end up voting, and for Democrats.  I just can’t take the risk of Republicans getting elected instead, and I’m sure plenty of other people feel the same way.  Democrats know that they only have to be slightly less bad than Republicans to win, and that’s setting the bar pretty low.  What we need is a strong liberal party to compete against the center-right party and the far-right party that we already have.  The problem is getting name recognition.  Maybe we could try taking over the Republican party once it gets small enough.  For example, someone like Ralph Nader could maintain all his positions, and decide to label himself a Republican.  Other than that, I’m all out of ideas.

“Oh this is actually harder than expected, the insurance companies don’t like health reform, I guess we’ll just pack up and go home.”

My respect for that man just doubled.

If you go with chiropractic, you have to be very careful.  Do not let them adjust your neck at all; it has a small risk of stroke with no benefit at all.  If your pain gets worse, stop going, immediately.

Can’t be said often enough.

The problem is, we really have no viable alternative to Democrats.

The problem is, we don’t have instant-runoff voting for the executive and proportional representation for the legislature.  Only that sort of electoral reform could give third-party candidates a chance.

Emaloo: my sister is a physician and recently sent my 86 year old father (whose back problems were forcing him to walk hunched over) to a acupuncturist.

My father is now walking upright again.

Western medicine is what? several hundred years old, Oriental medicine and acupuncture more like 2,000 years in use.

I’ve also only had one visit to a chiropractor, but during the examination, without any prompting from me, he correctly diagnosed a fall months before where I landed on my left knee.

I was very impressed, but unfortunately, my next insurance didn’t cover chiropractic.

When my child won’t stop bleeding at 5 PM on a Saturday, I don’t want to have to comparison shop among emergency rooms for the best price on stitches.

When my husband’s appendix bursts, I’m not going to be calling around to get a better deal.

When the doc-in-the-box clinic says “get thee to an emergency room or die, this sucker has gone systemic” I don’t give a damn about cost or paying for it, I don’t WANT TO DIE! (Of course that last instance entailed arguing with my dispatcher as the tech inserted the antibiotic IV. Yes, I’m in the hospital. Yes, it’s life or death. If I DIE you have to train a replacement, which is about $45K. Just give me the week off, dammit!)

Health care consumer my Wide-Load Ass.

They’re countries with not too dissimilar electoral systems that have viable and semi-viable third, fourth, fifth parties.  Canadians have neither instant-runoff executive voting nor proportional representation, and we have three, four or five parties active at a time.

The NIH and the World Health Organization have weighed in positively on acupuncture for some treatment:

“Over the years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded a variety of research projects on acupuncture, including studies on the mechanisms by which acupuncture may produce its effects, as well as clinical trials and other studies. There is also a considerable body of international literature on the risks and benefits of acupuncture, and the World Health Organization lists a variety of medical conditions that may benefit from the use of acupuncture or moxibustion. Such applications include prevention and treatment of nausea and vomiting; treatment of pain and addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; treatment of pulmonary problems such as asthma and bronchitis; and rehabilitation from neurological damage such as that caused by stroke.”
http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Acupuncture107html.htm

For the followup, a decade later on Acupuncture research:
Society for Acupuncture Research: 2007 Conference Report: “The Status and Future of Acupuncture Research: 10 Years Post–NIH Consensus Conference”
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2008.SAR-2

Other pertinent studies:
“Background. In 1983, the Southern Medical Journal advised its readers that a scientific basis might underlie the popular practice of ancient Chinese acupuncture. Recent studies have proven this to be correct…
Methods. Pertinent articles in the literature were reviewed, including our own research. Significantly, we had access to recent important studies from ChinaUse and Effectiveness of Acupuncture - NIH Statement

“Results and Conclusions. ...Evidence-based neuroelectric acupuncture ...is a simple, useful clinical tool for pain modulation and other conditions and can be easily taught to physicians.”
(C) 1998 Southern Medical Association
http://journals.lww.com/smajournalonline/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=1998&issue=12000&article=00004&type=abstract
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=81006680
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/141/12/901

Use and Effectiveness of Acupuncture - NIH Statement Nov 13, 2008

“Conclusions. Acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention is widely practiced in the United States. While there have been many studies of its potential usefulness, many of these studies provide equivocal results because of design, sample size, and other factors. The issue is further complicated by inherent difficulties in the use of appropriate controls, such as placebos and sham acupuncture groups. However, promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. Further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture interventions will be useful.”
http://www.healthyplace.com/alternative-mental-health/treatments/use-and-effectiveness-of-acupuncture/menu-id-55/

Cost effectiveness analysis of a randomised trial of acupuncture for chronic headache in primary care
Conclusions Acupuncture for chronic headache improves health related quality of life at a small additional cost; it is relatively cost effective compared with a number of other interventions provided by the NHS.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/328/7442/747?maxtoshow=&HITS=80&hits=80&RESULTFORMAT=3&fulltext=acupuncture&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT

Sorry, but I may have attached some of the links to the wrong write-ups, and I don’t have the time to unmismatch—but all links go to one or the other of the excerpts above, or other studies.

There are also individual “toothpick” studies that may claim the reverse—however, the consensus of both WHO and the NIH (in two separate decades) is that acupuncture can be therapeudic. (And I believe, the NHS, the United Kingdom health services must have come to the same conclusion, because the NHS now covers acupuncture.)

Or do your own Google search, and you’ll find more sources—good luck to you if you’re in the midst of any kind of healthcare trouble.

I hope you find relief.

That’s basically the issue—emergency care and routine care are profoundly different.

And those are both different from chronic care.

Count in this 59 year-old as someone without insurance, too—since Cigna raised my monthly rates nearly 100% to $1,000 a month.

Yup, they just kept raising it, until I could no longer afford health insurance. Think insurance companies hate twenty year olds? Not nearly as much as they hate those over 50, who if they don’t have pre-existing conditions (um, a couple after half a century for me) also are on the cusp for being expensive for insurers. Business also hates the over 50, now being laid off because they may have reached a comfortable wage, for someone younger and cheaper (my brother after 17 years with his company.)

My brother has a Cobra plan, but when that runs out, he can’t be put on his boyfriend (of 35 years) insurance plan because they’re not allowed to marry in his state. So when Cobra goes, he’s unlikely to find a carrier willing to take on an over 50 for less than a $1,000 bucks a month, and if he’s still unemployed, he’ll be uninsured like his over-50 sister.

I have friends on Social Security, but under 65 so they don’t qualify for Medicare: one, pre-diabetic with macular degeneration—and no healthcare.

However, twenty-something or over 50 the uninsured, isn’t an age thing: “too fat” and “too-thin” babies and toddlers, battered women and rape survivors are also being excluded from coverage.

Age is just one more excuse for health insurance companies to pad their profits.

That’s basically the issue—emergency care and routine care are profoundly different.
And those are both different from chronic care.

But you don’t always know which is which ahead of time. My father went to his cardiologist for a routine blood test to check his coumadin prescription, the doctor listened to his heart, and called an ambulance to get him to the nearest hospital. Said hospital was out of network and, after one life-saving surgery he was moved to a different hospital that was both in-network and had a better transplant program. At no point did he have a chance to research which hospital he needed - the doctor was seriously freaked out by his sudden turn for the worse and got him on a surgery table as fast as possible. But my dad didn’t choose his doctor fifteen years ago based on which hospital was closest, on the off chance he’d need emergency surgery with no time to spare.

Likewise, I chose my ob/gyn years ago for routine checkups without checking the prices for childbirth at the hospital with which she’s affiliated. As a young, single grad student, I chose based on my insurance, and I shouldn’t have to change doctors eight years later just because I’m pregnant.

Brian:

Parliamentary system. What we’ve got is sort of that, only without the names attached. Nobody runs on the Blue Dog or the Gang of 14 ticket, but they’re still essentially splinter parties that have to be wooed to form a governing coalition. (Well, not entirely, because without the name and the funding of the partner parties they’d be toast, but that’s certainly the way they act.)

As I read these things from my good friends at Pandagon, I have to wonder why they are supporting a health care reform package that is based on the continuation of the private, for-profit medical insurance system?  Remember: if anything like the current Baucus Bill passes, the government will have a vested interest in keep the private insurance companies running and profitable!

Is it that you think that any change is better than nothing?  Is it a need to give President Obama a victory?  Is it a desire to stick it to the evil insurance companies?

Um Dana, it’s lack of better options. We have had to yell scream and throw things to get this much. Don’t think we’re going to stop when/if this gets passed. There is more work to do. But the inertia at the top is immense and powerful.

I know that the whole chi-lines thing has been disproven, but thought the adrenaline response might loosen my muscles up.

Whether or not acupuncture is effective*, an adrenaline response wont cure anything.  Even if it would, you could get the same adrenaline by watching a scary movie.

*I have my doubts.  I’ve never seen a particularly impressive study.

Dana: Are you trying to push a “the perfect as the enemy of the good” argument, or was that accidental?

As for myself, I’m not working to get reform passed because “any change is better than nothing,” I’m doing it because the specific bills are better than the status quo, some of them much better. The Baucus bill sucks in many ways (you may have noticed folks here fighting to make sure it’s not the basis of the final bill, so it’s not like it hasn’t been obvious that we noticed that), but even it’s non-sucky provisions are better than nothing. It would fail to solve the major problems, but it will still improve lots of the lesser ones.

Is that so difficult to understand? There’s no mystery here; we’re not supporting it because of some tribal need to “win” or to punish “the enemy,” as you imply, we’re supporting it because we think it’s a good thing. Not a perfect thing, but a good thing. That seems pretty straightforward; what reason is there to look for an ulterior motive?

I’m guessing Dana thinks one should never take a partial victory on the path to a better solution… if it doesn’t fix it entirely, then live with what you have. Kind of like a terminal cancer patient shouldn’t bother with pain management because it won’t cure the disease. Suck it up people!

Redshift asked:

Dana: Are you trying to push a “the perfect as the enemy of the good” argument, or was that accidental?

No.  I could understand your (plural) position if I saw some evidence that you consider a mandatory private insurance better than an optional private insurance system, but it seems like everything in this thread concerns how terrible the existing private insurers are.  If the Baucus Bill or something similar passes, it will guarantee the continuation of the private insurance system, and for profit health insurance.

we’re supporting it because we think it’s a good thing. Not a perfect thing, but a good thing.

I have to admit: reading the comments here, it just seems difficult to see how the Pandagonistas define this as a good thing; if you were claiming it was a poor thing, but at least better than what exists now, then I’d understand what you are saying in those terms, because tey’d be consistant with the other comments here.

There’s a pretty substantial problem with trying to self-medicate via the placebo effect. See if you can guess what it might be.

You bump into things while running double blind tests?

Much to my astonishment, I find myself having to speak up in support of acupuncture.  After years of physiotherapy of various kinds, acupuncture is actually making some headway in freeing my back up (multiple injuries to lower back over an 18 year period).  Although what I’m having is called ‘dry-needling’ where the needles go into the locked muscles, making them twitch like crazy and then relax, rather than any mucking about with chi lines.  Also seconding (thirding, whatever) the warning about chiropractors.  They can be downright dangerous, you’re much better off going to an osteopath.

As I read these things from my good friends at Pandagon, I have to wonder why they are supporting a health care reform package that is based on the continuation of the private, for-profit medical insurance system?  Remember: if anything like the current Baucus Bill passes, the government will have a vested interest in keep the private insurance companies running and profitable!

Is it that you think that any change is better than nothing?  Is it a need to give President Obama a victory?  Is it a desire to stick it to the evil insurance companies?

Well, first off, you are not my friend and never will be.

And second, my support, if you can call it that, is tepid at best, and contingent on a bill which includes a decent public option.

Frankly, I think it is sad that no one, not even most liberals, seems willing to admit that a for-profit gatekeeper, i.e., private insurance, has absolutely no place in the business of basic/preventative healthcare.  I don’t think you can have affordable healthcare while including an entity whose sole purpose is to make money through premiums and limiting risks/payouts.  Which is what insurance companies do.

It’s an okay model for stuff like car or homeowner’s insurance, but neither type of insurance is expected to pay out for maintenance and repairs (unless the damages were incurred under a qualifying incident/accident).  Insurance doesn’t pay for oil changes or to fix a leaky toilet.

Relying on for-profit insurance to “provide” health care is fucking psychotic.

My only interest at this point is in the public option, which is at least, a feeble acknowledgment that private, for-profit insurance isn’t the way to keep our country healthy.

@ Emaloo:

For your back pain, I highly recommend Peggy Brill’s The Core Program. I had such excruciating back pain in my 20s (I’ll be 40 in April) that I thought I was gong to be crippled. I had zero desire to get hooked on narcotics, so I tried chiropractic (some relief), then yoga (further relief), Rolfing finally fixed it completely, but I knew I had to keep the surrounding muscles strong or it would just come back. So I found Brill’s book, worked up to the Ultimate Core and my pain is gone. It comes back when I get lazy, so I know it’s the Core Program.