Scott Horsley states the following this morning:"President Obama complained to Time magazine recently that the press had...reduced the story to a conventional battle between government-run health care and the free market....Mr. Obama has tried to substitute his own conventional narrative: in this one the insurance industry is cast as the VILLAIN. (soundbite of Obama) 'The truth is we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry but it doesn't always work well for you.' That makes insurance companies a convenient if not altogether appropriate foil."Consider Horsely's verbal sleight of hand. He equates a completely false distortion - characterizing the tepid Democratic health reform proposals as "government-run health care" in opposition to "the free market" - with a completely fact-based statement - "we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry but it doesn't work well for you [the public]." Yes, the system works well (insurance profits more than quadrupled from 2000 to 2007) but not for the public which pays more for less and suffers about 22,000 deaths a year from the insurance industry's commitment to not covering people. How could anyone cast them as the villain?
Having set up this falsehood, Horsely turns to health insurance industry
Horsely ends this report with a bit of moralizing against the Democrats, noting that "Brookings scholar Hess thinks it's unfortunate the Democrats have chosen to demonize health insurance companies." Demonizing the health insurance companies, now why would anyone do that?
* I'm not sure but I think the Bosch painting shows claims adjusters at work in the offices of Blue Cross or Aetna.
26 comments:
Bosch would've spewed chunks if he'd been exposed to NPR.
PS: I'd rather take a class from a pig-nun before subjecting muself to NPR's alleged 'wisdom' about the world.
Also, how unfortunate, even hideous, that listeners to NPR who are sincerely interested in Africa are getting such awful reports from NPR's Gwen Thompkins. Today she tapped into interesting literary figures, but, characteristically, turned it into a Disneyland expedition into bozo-quality bumbling along. Her most memorable observation about Ugandan author David Kaiza was that his aviator sunglasses are way too large for his head.
What ever would she do if she had to interview Elton John?
At least Quist-Arcton - out of DAKAR - is far enough away from NPR HQ to keep her identity - something that all-American Gwen would be loath to do.
PPS: the 'new' NPR website shows aggressive influence from girl-wonder Viv Shill-er. Bigger type, more flab, and dumbed-down. Of course.
PPPS: I stood in front of Bosch's triptych at the Prado and learned more about the world in c. seventeen minutes than I have my entire NPR 'career'...
Though I do not disagree that the whole system benefits the health insurance industry at the expense of the public, I have a problem with the villain characterization.
No one is FORCING Obama, Pelosi and the rest to vote the way the health care industry wants them to vote.
The REAL problem is that our politicians continue to take millions of dollars from the insurance industries and VOTE against what is in the best interest of the public.
I think it is not only hypocritical but also a cop-out on the part of Obama and Pelosi to somehow blame the health insurance industry for what is effectively their own failure: to enact meaningful change.
I did not vote for Obama so that he could make excuses for why he is not doing what he promised. I voted for him because i thought he would actually stand up to these people that he is now "villainizing".
It's been clear to me for some time that NPR had a bias against health insurance reform, for whatever reason, but today really shows they are pulling out the stops. Between this and the free spew session for Kyl this morning, it's ridiculous.
Obama's "appropriate....foil" comment smacks of an impending, if not already present, sell out.
A Note: I bailed on NPR for 3months, and came back to find they are sliding further down the non-story stupid tube.
Don't listen, can't listen, won't listen anymore, but I will say this:
Should we have a pandemic on the order of the Black Death (that Bosch was in part responding to), with our dismal lack of public healthcare, whatever will our happy, shiny NPR folk report when they begin to succomb despite their six-figure incomes and (what they thought was) adequate insurance?
They'll say what their bosses and go-to corporate mouthpieces tell them, that the world is unsustainably overpopulated and that a massive 'depopulation' event is inevitable. It's nature's way, after all; they learned that at bilderberg.
Check the coporate sponsors of NPR and that tells me all i need to know about how "sold-out" they are.
edk
This is good shit, brother...
I love classical allusions to contemporary issues and conditions.
There's a whole gallery in the Stats-Museum in Vienna dedicated to Breughels, where I spent almost a whole morning one day a couple of years ago. (Bosch and Breughels being at least spiritual cousins)...
Right on, Woody. Nobody's ever topped Pieter B's 'Tower of Babel'...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_(Brueghel)
Pitting "gov't health care versus private HC" would be most accurate. A "public option" is a stalking horse for national health care.
I support national health care. Your arguments are just as slanted as the Insurance companies'. However, we can't just decree national health care.
These insurance companies are publicly traded. To destroy their market would destroy their wealth. Though I initially didn't like Obama's plan, I came to see it's genius.
The "public option" allows the insurance companies time to reposition themselves in the market place. It allows them time to divest, or invest in new markets.
Certainly these firms will expand their supplemental insurance packages, though their primary insurance business will disappear.
If we were to by decree destroy these companies, their value, and the value of the stockholders we'd be doing a disservice.
You need to be honest about what public options will do. Insurance companies, in my mind should be non-profits.
USAA is a non-profit insurer that tops the market in customer service, lowest rates, and best capitalized. This company is considered so superior JDPower won't even compare them to their competitors.
Anon....good take...I can see the evolution. It would be nice tho
.....for Mr Obama to talk it straight out as you say to the people, and tell it like it is, loud and clear. Obama is a smart guy awright but if such is the case, we could cut through the crap and get the plan out there.
Though I initially didn't like Obama's plan, I came to see it's genius."
Obama's "public option" is only 'genius" if you consider placating the public in order to pass a plan that is not in their best interest -- short OR long term.
Obama is an incrementalist and some things simply require more than incremental "tinkering".
He talks "big" but acts small.
Sometimes doing something (anything) can be worse than doing nothing. This is one of those cases.
It's like the stimulus. It was too small to really help the unemployment problem, but now it is very unlikely that Obama will get more money. he should have listened to people who ARE geniuses (economics laureates Joe Stiglitz and paul Krugman). Instead, he pushed a bill that gave too much to the banks and too little to the ordinary American.
I think Normon Solomon has it right on health care:
The Incredible Shrinking Healthcare Reform
by Norman Solomon
"As this week began, a leading follower of conventional wisdom, journalist Cokie Roberts, told NPR listeners: "This is evolving legislation. And the administration is now talking about a glide path towards universal coverage, rather than immediate universal coverage."
Notions of universal healthcare are fading in the power centers of politics -- while more and more attention focuses on the care and feeding of the insurance industry.
"Like soap in a rainstorm, "healthcare reform" is wasting away.
"The difference between the promise of healthcare for everyone and the new mantra of health insurance reform is akin to what Mark Twain once described as "the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
///end Solomon quotes
The only thing Obama is a genius at is conning people into believing that HE is some kind of master chess player who is 100 moves ahead of the insurance industry and has some kind of master plan that he will "reveal" to the American people somewhere down the road.
Unfortunately, what we see is what we get.
If it looks like he has sold out to the corporate interests, it is because he HAS.
Sorry, but I've got to weigh in on the Obama "genius" idea.
Seems to me if Obama had any genius he would have led with a full court press for single-payer and see how it played - with the fall-back compromise line-in-the-sand being an expansive and vigorous public option.
Instead he and the leading Democrats played the fool (or well-lobbied and financed) and led off with the already compromised position. Have these dopes been paying attention to the Repubs since 1994? You almost have to admire the rightwing strategy of launching any campaign by aiming for the most ambitious (extreme) position and then, even if curbed, still coming out with a very rightwing "compromise."
Frankly, I think we are screwed and the insurance killers will be laughing all the way to their AIG insured banks.
Obama is at genius at saying one thing to get elected and then doing the opposite after he is in office.
And I am a fool for buying it...
**********************
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-08-04-12-46-58-news.php
"Obama Gives Powerful Drug Lobby a seat at Healthcare Table
By Tom Hamburger
August 4, 2009, Washington, DC
Published by The Los Angeles Times.
"As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he eventually secured an agreement that the administration wouldn't try to overturn the very Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized on the campaign trail.
"The White House blessed it," Tauzin said.
USAA is a non-profit insurer that tops the market in customer service, lowest rates, and best capitalized.
Caters to military officers and the war machine too. It's win-win!
When candidate Obama voted for the FISA amendments further curtailing our privacy and retroactively immunizing the telecommunication companies for doing so, I thought the likelihood for real change was going to be very remote.
Voting for him was indeed a matter of choosing the lesser evil.
If he were interested in changing health care, single payer would be at the forefront instead of this current reform charade.
When I was in the Army, I had USAA. Once I got out, I let my policy lapse, because I stopped driving a car. I was unable to get it back as a civilian, and I have been regretting it ever since.
WoWo,
USAA caters to officers and enlisted. Rates were pretty cheap. As for the war thing, I'm not a big fan. I consider myself a militant pacifist now.
-jet
Anon:
Obama is at genius at saying one thing to get elected and then doing the opposite after he is in office.
And I am a fool for buying it...
YOU are not the fool! It isn't "foolish" to be tricked by a charlaton. It says way worse about Obama than about you.
edk
When candidate Obama voted for the FISA amendments further curtailing our privacy and retroactively immunizing the telecommunication companies for doing so, I thought the likelihood for real change was going to be very remote.
Voting for him was indeed a matter of choosing the lesser evil.'
While it is true that in some cases, Obama has done precisely what he said he would do, it is also true that in some cases (eg, health care) he has done just the opposite (see LA Times article above)
"He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner."
Some (eg, above) have even convinced themselves that Obama's cow-towing to the corporate special interests is part of some "brilliant" plan of his to actually undermine those very interests.
That's just utter nonsense. There is no evidence that that is the case.
besides, he should be judged based on what he does, not what he says -- or on what he promises will happen somewhere down the road.
This whole health care "reform" thing is basically a cruel joke.
It's certainly not change I can believe in.
More like chump change.
I'm ready to actively campaign against Obama in 2012 and i have never done that before in my 30 years of voting in Presidential elections.
That's how disgusted this fellow has made me.
Actually worked for USAA for a few dreadful months in the late '80s, Juan. At that time they didn't allow enlisted personnel to sign up, but now I see that they do.
Incidentally, they had a strict dress code and I was once sent home for wearing culottes to work! Another time I had invited a friend to have lunch with me, and they wouldn't let her in the building because she was wearing huarache sandals. So I have no love lost for them. ;)
We have NPR on when we're getting ready in the morning. This morning, I heard in passing: a story about the teabaggers, with no mention of their corporate funding or mainstream political (Dick Armey) and media (Fox News) sponsorship and udd Gregg talking about how we wants everything but Obama wants, he just doesn't want the goverment to spend any money to do it.
Just un-frickin'-beleivable.
I'm ready to actively campaign against Obama in 2012 and i have never done that before in my 30 years of voting in Presidential elections.
probably you won't have to...I anticipate (with no particular pleasure) that he'll be a lame-duck after the election in '10...
That's the owners' plan, of that I'm certain.
Obama was the Owners' way of saying, Okay, we'll give you a token outsider for a while, just to show you how inept they are.
Then you'll be ready to recognize the superiority of the white guy we'll replace him with...
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