Naivete in Surprising Places
Dec 23rd, 2009 | 16 responses
It seems obvious to me why Fox invited Jane Hamsher on to be interviewed about her opposition to the Senate health care reform bill. It’s not clear to me that she does, though — or maybe she does and isn’t bothered by it. Whichever it is, I think Steve M. gets it exactly right. He quotes from Jane’s response to the Daily Kos diarist who attacked her (in a rude and inappropriate manner, in my opinion):
Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake:
I notice there is a diary up on Daily Kos attacking me for going on Fox & Friends….
There’s a difference between helping to recruit Democratic viewers to Fox that they don’t have, and bringing a message about PhRMA that divides Republican viewers from the party leadership by pointing out the hypocrisy of their talking points….
It scares the bejesus out of the DC establishment of both parties to think that the left and right might align against the corporate interests that dominate the massive giveaways that keep happening no matter who’s in power….
Steve then gently tells Jane she was used:
Fox books liberals for two reasons: to be punching bags or to help reinforce messages Murdoch wants to deliver. I watched your clip and you weren’t treated like a punching bag — so that leaves only one choice: you were there to play “Even the liberal…” — that is, you were there to deliver the message “This bill is so awful even some liberals loathe it.”
No one on the right is “uniting” with you on principles. The Fox audience doesn’t want to join you to help make a good bill. The Fox audience wants to kill this bill, brutally and mercilessly, and then get every single Democrat out of office.
I agree that the bill is rather awful, and I’ve been vacillating on the question of whether it’s worth voting for, so I respect your intentions. But if you think left and right are meeting right now, your vision field is almost as warped as that of the we-love-Hillary-and-Sarah PUMAs. The Fox audience doesn’t hate the fat cats — the Fox audience hates you, Jane, and everything you stand for, and your readers and everything they stand for, and Barack Obama and everything (they think) he stands for. But they’ll suspend their contempt when they can use you as a stick to beat Obama with. You know the old saying: “Let’s you and him fight!” That’s what they’re saying to you.
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16 Responses to “Naivete in Surprising Places”
Principled people of both parties should stand up, in whatever forum they can find, to protest and oppose in good faith what they believe is deeply flawed legislation.
There was a very interesting discussion today on Morning Joe in which one could see the principled unification of left and right on this issue. The players: uber-liberal independent socialist Bernie Sanders, inside the beltway WAPO reporter Carl Bernstein and conservative Joe Scarborough. The subject was the culture of corruption in DC, using the health care bill as an example. This bill, as correctly pointed out in that discussion, serves primarily to line the pockets of special interests and to eliminate any serious competitive interest or regulation on those big money, high powered special interests.
The most recent example used was the elimination of the provision that would have removed big insurance's anti-trust exemption. By allowing them to keep the exemption they can continue to engage in their decades long practice of price fixing,. Thus, not only is outside competition eliminated, but any hope of competition within the industry has been eliminated.
What started out as an idealistic hope of expanding health care access, improving health care quality and reducing systemic health care costs has become, though the corrupt interests of the power players, little more than a boondoggle for Big Insurance, Big Pharma, members of the AHA and AMA.
For those who suggest that this is a beginning and will be turned into something worthy in the future, I hesitantly suggest that such a view may be delusional. With all of the power players benfitting and lining their pockets with this special interest legislation at the expense of the citizenry and at the expense of the broader economy, those power players will be in an ever-increasing position of wealth and power, with even more to protect going forward, and will squelch any attempt by the idealists to reform the “reform”.
Good points Tidbits. I would add that someone like Hamsher opposing the bill is legitimate news, and it is reasonable for networks to cover it regardless of which way they tilt politically. If I were Hamsher it would be preferable to express my views directly rather than letting the likes of Doocy, et al express them for me.
For those who suggest that this is a beginning and will be turned into something worthy in the future, I hesitantly suggest that such a view may be delusional.
And you don't think the notion — put forth by Hamsher and her colleagues at Firedoglake — that the bill, after being killed, can be passed in this same session of Congress by reconciliation is not delusional?
From Kathy, “And you don't think the notion — put forth by Hamsher and her colleagues at Firedoglake — that the bill, after being killed, can be passed in this same session of Congress by reconciliation is not delusional?”
Agreed, Kathy, equally delusional. Upon reflection, however, I wish I had used the word “unrealistic” instead of “delusional”. Delusional is too personal and pejorative for the thought I was trying to express.
Delusional is too personal and pejorative for the thought I was trying to express.
That's okay, gc. You are still aces in my book.
“The most recent example used was the elimination of the provision that would have removed big insurance's anti-trust exemption. By allowing them to keep the exemption they can continue to engage in their decades long practice of price fixing,. Thus, not only is outside competition eliminated, but any hope of competition within the industry has been eliminated.”
Have you ever read McCarron Ferguson or are you going “Father_Time” on us this morning with personal hypotheses stated as facts without providing substantiation?
MF does not provide any exemption for immunity from price fixing. It allows for the pooling of morbidity and mortality statistics. Those statistics are then entered onto rate filing forms which then have to be submitted and approved by every state insurance department where the insurer wished to sell a policy using those rates. Most states also have annual requirements to file excess profits returns where any amount in excess of a state mandated return is then entered as a rate reduction factor in the next year's rate filing.
No wonder the health care cost spiral is never solved…..very few understand where it comes from.
CO asks, “Have you ever read McCarron Ferguson”?
You should know by now that I can't read.
As for FT, he can speak for himself.
All I was doing was regurgitating the discussion put forth on Morning Joe earlier today. Please note that I said, “the most recent example used…” That Joe Scarborough equates the procedure you describe with price fixing is something you might want to take up with him, though I understand his logic that sharing the statistics upon which rates are set isn't too far from price fixing. As for the integrity, knowledge or reliance on the industry they are supposed to regulate, my opinion of state IC's is an entirely different issue which perhaps can be discussed in the future.
It's A Wonderful Bill
OK, sorry, I'll read more carefully next time (maybe) and blame Joe Scarborough for the inaccurate statement.
IMO, there are two things that would transpire if MF was repealed. Either the Feds would allow the insurers to continue to pool the experience data as they have been allowed to do under MF (which is pretty much why there is no sentiment to repeal MF amongst the more astute members of Congress) or….not. If not, what happens?……Aetna then uses its own pool, Humana uses their own pool, CIGNA uses their own pool…ad infinitum. Small companies drop out for fear of having inadequate data to price. Chances are the big guys' calculations would come out pretty close to industry averages now and not much would change for the consumer. In some ways, I think it should be repealed just to show the folly of those who think insurance companies do something more than simply redistribute consumers' submitted costs…yes, albeit at a markup (see below).
IMO, a more unbiased view comes from an organization such as Consumer Reports…here are their findings:
Hospitals and doctors. Doctors and hospitals account for by far the largest share, 52 percent in 2006, of all national health spending. There's abundant evidence that some of that spending is unnecessary. Under the present system, hospitals and doctors earn more money by doing costly interventions than by keeping people healthy. And more medical care doesn't necessarily mean better care, according to research on Medicare expenditures by the Dartmouth Medical School's Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.
Health-care consumers. “Modifiable” risk factors, such as eating too much, exercising too little, or smoking, are to blame for an estimated 25 percent of U.S. health-care costs, according to expert estimates.
Insurance companies. Health-insurance premiums have grown faster than inflation in parallel with the equally rapid rise in overall health costs. Industry spending on administrative and marketing costs, plus profits, consumes 12 percent of private-insurance premiums.
Drug companies. Prescription drugs account for one-tenth of total health-care expenditures. But drug spending has increased as a share of overall expenditures over the past decade.
Politicians and government regulators. Although the government directly controls only 46 percent of national health spending, many of its policies affect the bottom line of the health-care industry, for example, by setting Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors on which private insurers base their rates, or by regulating health insurance.
“Either the Feds would allow the insurers to continue to pool the experience data as they have been allowed to do under MF (which is pretty much why there is no sentiment to repeal MF amongst the more astute members of Congress) or….not. If not, what happens?”
In theory the feds should be able to compile and provide statistics, and incorporate these stats into federal laws or regulations, but do we trust the current people in Washington to do this successfully?
Of course, many of the complications arising from the use of experience data would simply or neatly be bypassed if the feds chose at that point, as an example of real reform, to require insurers to go from experience rating to community rating, either on a state-wide or a nation-wide basis.
Are you overweight and over 50?
Otherwise, that is very Kattenburgesque of you.
Sorry, you won't get my vote.
OF course this quote can't help but resonate:
Getting that message out is incredibly important if “the people” ever have a prayer of wresting this country back from the corporatocrasy. That said, as people like Jonathon Cohn have pointed out quite clearly, with graphs, etc. this reform package, even with all it's warts, would be an improvement over the current downwardly mobile status quo system.
Why didn't my reply get here yet? OK, well, you may be spared (it was longer than this).
“Are you overweight and over 50?”
No.
“Otherwise, that is very Kattenburgesque of you.”
Going to community rating, or calling it something else like “forming a single pool,” and doing the same thing, has long been known as a reform measure so long as we retain the insurance model or its facade.
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Kathy, I don't know why you're surprised at Jane Hamsher's naïveté; her lack of common sense has been apparent for years. (And I say that even though I agree with many or most of her goals.)
No, the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 provides that the states can regulate “the business of insurance”. It has prevented interstate competition. I'll provide some links, in the spirit of “providing substantiation”. Maybe then you can substantiate your claims.
Courts have distinguished between the general regulatory exemption of the McCarran-Ferguson Act and the separate exemption provided for the Sherman Act, which is the federal ANTITRUST LAW. Cases involving the applicability of the Sherman Act to state-regulated insurance practices take a narrower approach to the phrase “business of insurance”
http://law.jrank.org/pages/8497/McCarran-Fergus…
The McCarran–Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1011-1015, is a United States federal law that exempts insurance companies from the federal anti-trust legislation that applies to most businesses[1] and allows state law to regulate the business of insurance without federal government interference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran%E2%80%93F…