Obama Weekly Address: On The Health Insurance Issue

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Obama Administration
Posted on Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 09:47:49 AM EST
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It's general pablum about the need to "reform" the health insurance system. It would be more meaningful if the President was supporting proposals to actually reform the health insurance system in a meaningful way. The White House is not. It has pushed for the feeble Senate health bill that does nothing meaningful on reform, though it does expand Medicaid and offer, albeit inadequate, subsidies for the purchase of health insurance. To call it a band aid is an insult to band aids. Would it be a first step? Well, the proponents of the bill like to say it will be decades before health insurance reform is addressed again, so by their own logic, it is the last step for some time. Either the crisis is not quite so desperate, which seems wrong, or the notion of doing anything, however feeble, is the logic of the day. Not very inspiring.

Speaking for me only

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Obama Weekly Address: On The Health Insurance Issue | 2 comments (2 topical)

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I'd feel better if Krugman's piece had... (none / 0) (#2)
by EL seattle on Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 11:43:59 AM EST

...used the phrase "Califiornia Private Insurance death spiral" instead of just "California Death Spiral". I agree with what Krugman is saying here, but he only lists one statistic for a subset of "California" (800,000), and then lets it sit there without going into details about how it might represent all of California.

This story from a few days ago has more numbers about this problem.

About 2.5 million Californians have individual insurance policies, accounting for a small portion of the state's overall insurance market. By contrast, nearly 21 million people in California are covered by health maintenance organizations.

Krugman's saying that this problem is is a sign that "our health care system is unraveling, and that inaction isn't an option." I think that he's correct about that. But for me, his repeated use of the phrase "California's Death Spiral" was a serious distraction from the merits of the argument that he was making.

Has anyone seen any statistics about how many people who had private insurance have dropped it or reduced their coverage over the past couple of years? That would be a useful statistic to follow as this crisis develops.

For all the talk about Transparency... (none / 0) (#4)
by EL seattle on Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 03:01:14 PM EST

...that we heard during the last presidential election, I thought that there was a real appetite on the part of the public for this sort of detailed information. In regards to most parts of government-related data. But often, the release of information seems to be either, delayed, incomplete or spun in such a way that it can't be easily and fairly analyzed. Just like before.

This is understandable, I guess. People are people, after all. But as I remember it, the "Hope and Change" ideal went beyond just electing one single specific man to be President of the USA. It's sad to see other parts of the Hope and Change dream get drowned in the murky sea of business-as-usual.

Thanks for the Anthem Blue Cross quote, BTW. I did a quick google and it led to THIS posting, which ultimately makes the same point as Krugman, but witout quite so much of the "Death Spiral" hyperbole.